Resistance
by Symbolist
Summary: People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It's people who claim they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of. Complete 11.19.06
1. Prologue

**A/N:** So I guess I'm back to Wicked again. I have no idea how far this will go or if it will go at all, but it kind of came to me. In explanation, this is a typical "what if?" story, based around the premise "What if Elphaba had succeeded in assassinating Madame Morrible on Lurlinemas Eve in the City of Emeralds?"

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

Prologue

Through narrowed eyes she looks up at the building before her, tall and ominous in all its glory. Her vision is blurred though, and she is still groggy from the night before. As she slowly comes to her senses, a wave of iciness flows over her and the wind picks up. She sits up slowly, moaning as her cramps are soothed out.

The night had been passed lying on the ground among the patches of snow, which were now mingled with soot tossed out the windows from the upper apartments. Elphaba reaches out to pick up the hat that is lying beside her. Brushing off the dirty snow she pushes it firmly onto her head and clears her throat, which aches as it does whenever she feels guilty. Squinting her eyes to see better in the early morning light, she realizes that from one of the apartment windows, a flag hangs; a green flag with a blood-red cross. The flag of the Gale Force flies from her window.

She is suddenly awake and thrusting her way through the old apartment door, which nearly falls off its rusty hinges in her haste. She all but flies up the stairs, anxiety and fear pumping adrenaline through her veins. Her temple throbs, but she does not stop; not even when she trips over the carcass of a small, white cat. Malky.

The door to her loft is standing open, a long streak of blood smeared across the decaying wood. Her eyes burn already and she knows what she is going to find even before she enters. The floorboards creak with her weight and her hand flies to her face, wiping the hot tears away. A small hiss emerges as the wet burns her hand, but she does her best to ignore it as she pushes the door open.

She chokes back a sob as the room is revealed; the window has been shattered and the Gale Force flag is hanging outside; pools of dark blood spot the aged flooring. Before, an alter of candles had been set up for no one in particular, a sanctuary for Elphaba; now the melted wax is scattered about the floor, the candles lying on their sides and rolled into corners and crevices. Only one candle remains intact, its wick still lit.

The bed frightens her the most, for there is a body laying in it. The creaky metal frame lost a leg and sits now at a jaunty angle, tilting itself toward her; a white sheet, stained with crimson, lies over the form of a human body. Despite herself, Elphaba edges toward the cot, her breath growing husky and uneven as she steps closer, closer, closer.

She prays; Elphaba has never prayed in her life. Even back with Frexspar, when he prayed at home or at church she would dutifully close her eyes and bow her head and close her hands, and instantly begin thinking about something entirely unrelated. But now she prays, pleading with the Unnamed God or Lurline or whoever was out there that the body under the sheet is not that of Fiyero.

The wind howls violently through the window, seizing the door and slamming it shut. Elphaba looks up in alarm, but her attention does not last long.

Her hand slowly reaches out to pull back the sheet, but her knees buckle before she touches the blood-soaked linen and she collapses to the floor, her chest heaving in dry sobs. The fierce wind blows through the window, pulling the sheet down into Elphaba's lap. She grabs the sheet and her knuckles are white with the rigidity of her grip. She lifts her chin suddenly and screams as her eyes meet the dark eyes of Fiyero; his eyes are open wide, but he is dead. His shirt is torn open and several deep, wicked wounds mark his chest and stomach; a trickle of blood runs down his face.

Running to the window, Elphaba grabs the flag and begins pulling it in; glass fragments left in the window cut her arms but she ignores the pain, clenching her razor teeth on her tongue. She shreds the flag, tearing it into long strips of green-and-red silk. Tears of frustration roll down her cheeks, stinging her flesh like acid.

Sirens sound outside, reminding her of the previous night and its events; she only now remembers the acts that were performed last night. If only Frexspar knew… if only he knew of her crimes…

Elphaba has assassinated Madame Morrible.

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	2. I

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

**A/N:** This chapter took a bit longer to write than I wanted it to, but I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome. I'm excited to write this story out at last, since the roots of it have been bubbling in my mind for quite some time now. Thanks to the readers and reviewers and to daydreamer731 for helping me with all this.

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

I.

Elphaba holds her cloak tightly around her shoulders to block the angry weather. Her emerald eyes dart back and forth, searching the alley for any sign of the Gale Force or their spies; only the hollow sounds of the wind rushing through gaps in the City's poor-section architecture give a response. Feeling secure, she pushes roughly on the door and steps in as it gives leeway into the old building.

A lantern hangs at the end of the hall, casting an eerie glow through the corridor. Elphaba mutters an oath as she trips down the step and nearly sends herself sprawling in the inch of water that has collected from the rain of the previous night. The building is old and leaks in many places. Water drips from the wooden ceiling even now and Elphaba goes out of her way to avoid contact. Out of habit she sends up silent thanks to the Unnamed God for her heavy boots to keep out the water.

She reaches the end of the hall and reaches up to grab the lantern. Wrapping her fingers around the rusty ring that hangs from the bottom of the lantern, she pulls as hard as she can and the door swings open, granting Elphaba entrance into the headquarters of the Resistance.

Whispers reach Elphaba's ears as she steps into the enveloping darkness and the door swings shut behind her.

A hush comes over the room and a woman's voice says, "State your name."

"Fae."

The murmuring erupts again and Elphaba feels surrounded by it – they are all around her. She is in the center of the dark, circular room that has now become familiar to her. She steps forward until her boots crush her toes as she kicks a small stone pillar. "Light the lantern," the woman's voice commands.

Elphaba pulls up the hood of her cloak to prevent the coming light from revealing her identity; her hands grope in the darkness, searching for the box of matches. They are damp and they bite at her fingers, but she manages to light one and touches it gently to the candle inside the lamp that rests on the altar. She closes the lantern and lets the match drop to the floor before stepping back into her cavern.

The room is physically subterranean and carved from stone, at least according to Elphaba's assumptions. She has never actually seen the other members of the Resistance because they are always tucked away inside their sections of the underground cave. The cave is divided into several caverns – exactly how many Elphaba has not had the chance to calculate. Each member of the Resistance sits in their stone compartments, hidden in the shadows to keep all identities secret, for safety's sake.

An ugly arrow was painted on the rock floor in gray-blue paint, pointing vainly at Raven's grotto. The Resistance's leader commands a sort of respect from the very tone of her voice, a cool tone with a sense of proper disdainfulness. Raven is a calm woman with wisdom Elphaba would not have expected from people twice her assumed age, but a certain narcissism rings from her words.

"Is it done?" Raven asks.

"It is."

A shout comes from across the room and Elphaba bites her lip as words of sound congratulations float from all directions.

"What's wrong?"

"What?" Elphaba has said nothing, yet Raven knows. _How does she always know?_

"Fae…"

"It's nothing."

"If you refuse to talk then there's nothing we can do to help you," someone says.

"Fae?" a male's voice asks. "Are you sure there's nothing? Assassination is not an easy task and it's common for –"

"I'm fine!" Her words ring off the walls and the other members have gone quiet.

Raven's azure voice cuts through the silence. "With the final piece of the first part of the operation we can finally continue into the second movement. Fae?" Raven's voice has a sharp edge to it now. "They have all received their instructions. You are to accompany Heart to the Vinkus to find allies. The Wizard's reign has struck down on the Vinkusians nearly as hard as the Animals. Persuading them to align with us should not be difficult, but it could play an important role in the Wizard's ultimate overthrow if it should come down to a physical battle."

Elphaba struggles to avoid signs of emotion, though she is not visible to anyone. The Vinkus. How could Raven have possibly picked the Vinkus for her? How could she be so convenient? How could she face Sarima? How could she evade thoughts of Fiyero? How?

"Yes." Her mouth has gone dry and it feels as though her tongue and throat have swollen, all working together to block her speech. The singular word is all she can squeeze out: "Yes."

"Are you sure?" Raven is in a rare moment of concern for a member's well-being. "We don't want to ruin our plans just because one of us is not prepared." Raven's concern is not for Elphaba's safety, but for assurance that the plans for the second movement can be carried through without too much of a struggle.

"Yes."

"Good."

"One question."

"Yes?"

Elphaba tries to swallow, but finds it hard to work around the lump in her parched throat. "Part of the code of the Resistance is to keep our identities secret at all times, correct?"

"Yes…" Elphaba cannot help but feel a glint of satisfaction at the touch of puzzlement in Raven's voice – it is not often that she is confused.

"So how are Heart and I to keep ourselves secret from each other if we are to travel outside of these walls together, into the Vinkus?"

The cave has fallen silent. A snigger splits through the air from the cavern opposite Elphaba's – Fenix. How very like a teenage boy.

"That is an excellent question, Fae," says Raven after a long silence. "One I shall ponder on. If anyone has any notions as to this, please inform me at once." No one speaks and Raven curses quietly.

:---:

The moonlight floods the street, casting a ghostlike light over the Emerald City. The soles of Elphaba's boots clunk loudly through the night's peace as she runs through the streets, away from the headquarters. "When you are told to leave, you are to make your way outside and then run as far as you can in random directions. You can find your way from there, just get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. This is part of our code, used to keep our identities secret and safe." Those were Raven's instructions on Elphaba's initiation day. Elphaba does not dare break the code at all – her safety is at more risk than the others, for how many people had jaded skin, even in the City of Emeralds?

Elphaba stops at last and sits on an upside-down crate, panting softly and her heart beating wildly. The cold wind is picking up again and is tugging at her cloak. A shiver runs through her and she stands again, looking around to see where she is.

By some hand of the Unnamed God, she is only blocks away from her flat. But whether this is positive or negative, Elphaba cannot decide. She will not go back to the apartment. Only tragedy awaits there, only a room of empty happiness and unfulfilled dreams. Pushing down her hat, Elphaba begins a dignified walk through the streets.

She remembers the days of Shiz, when she would walk down empty dormitory corridors and imagine she was walking down a grand staircase with thousands of Ozians on all sides, of all races, humans and Animals alike. The Wizard was always beside her in those dreams, tall and kind and smiling happily about the good deeds he has accomplished with Elphaba. And Elphaba is dressed magnificently in shades of blue and black and no one notices her skin as being out of the ordinary.

But those imaginations were false dreams, and such things could never happen now. The Wizard is evil and there is no hope now of pulling over on Elphaba's side to try to save the Animals, to stop the persecution. That was why Elphaba had joined the Resistance – they were like her, other humans trying to prevent the demolition of Animal rights.

The cobblestones beneath Elphaba's feet were stained with blood, a harsh reminder of last night. Madame Morrible and Fiyero were not the only citizens slain on Lurlinemas Eve. Innocents were killed. Anyone in the streets with a weapon was seen as threat and they were lynched by the Gale Force.

The quiet sounds of the lower City are suddenly interrupted by a soft weeping. Elphaba stops, her ears alert, listening for the sounds. A soft mew cuts off the crying and Elphaba is suddenly running, searching for the injured Cat.

The Cat is lying in the middle of an alley, her black fur missing in large clumps. Elphaba drops to her knees, gently petting the Cat and she softly kisses her neck. The Cat lets out a sob and Elphaba follows suit.

"Come on, let me help you," says Elphaba, gently lifting the skinny body of the Cat.

"No," the Cat hisses. "Stop. My time has come." The Cat's yellow eyes flash a brilliant, lime green and Elphaba sets her down. Those terrifying eyes flash green again and the Cat murmurs something: "You're hope holds danger," says the Cat. "Beware those in which you have confidence, for they are not as trustworthy as you may believe. Beware the Cross, for it will bring you tragedy. Beware the deserts, for they will bring you remorse. Old friends will return and a new life will begin."

Elphaba lifted the Cat's torn body and carried it with her; the Cat was a Vinkusian Cat, an ultramodern Cat. The Cat told Elphaba's fortune, her future in prophecy form. And now Elphaba is crying over what the public death of the Cat represents.

The downfall of the Animals is coming faster than she expected.

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	3. II

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

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**Resistance**

_by Fiyero Oberon_

II.

Elphaba sits in her cavern and waits. The carcass of the Cat rests in her lap, ready and waiting for Raven's inspection. Elphaba was so alarmed by the Cat's foresight that she had almost called an emergency meeting, but decided a one-on-one with Raven would be best.

The door swung open and the light from the corridor's lantern flooded into the small room. Elphaba watched as two cloaked figures entered the room and shut the door. "Who is it?" she calls out.

"Heart."

"And Raven. And you?"

"Fae."

The room's center lantern is lit and the two figures step into their compartments. "Why," asks Raven, "have you called me here?" She sounds tired and almost angry, but Elphaba knows she will want to hear the Cat's story before the others are told.

And Elphaba tells her of finding the Cat, and the strange foreseeing, and the symbolism that she feels is hidden within the Cat's free murder. "It is possible," she says in conclusion, "that the Gale Force is preparing for a giant strike – an enormous attack on all Animals and those that support them. I am not sure separating is best at this time. I know you are sending a few of the others to the Quadling swamps for allies and someone is being sent to Lady Glinda of Gillikin, but I just don not –"

"Perhaps it will serve as an excellent reminder that I am the leader of this movement, not you," snaps Raven. "This Cat could mean nothing, Fae. We cannot change the details of our entire plan because of the death of one Cat."

"I thought you cared about –"

"I do, Fae. I do. But what is one Cat in comparison to the thousands of Animals that may be ruined if we change our plan now?"

"But what if our plan is wrong?"

The room is hushed – it is a rare moment when someone challenges Raven's word. Heart is quiet, but Elphaba senses her heavy breathing in the cavern next to her.

The quiet has settled for a long time and Elphaba wonders if Raven and Heart left but she failed to notice. Is Raven contemplating Elphaba's words? Is she judging them, thinking it over and actually considering the possibility of being in the wrong? Or is she biting her tongue, working hard to prevent her tongue from lashing out with angry words that could drive Elphaba away from her task and upset the order of the plan.

"You will leave for the Vinkus tomorrow," Raven says, her tone sharp. "Do not ask further questions. As for your secret identities… well I suppose that deal will end tomorrow, won't it?" Raven strolls over to the lantern, snuffs it out, and leaves.

"Heart?"

"Yes?"

"Oh… just seeing if you were still here."

"I am."

The cave seems to be ringing with silence and Elphaba's ears cannot stand it. Her thin hands stroke over the Cat's damp fur, petting the Animal as though she was still alive.

Elphaba's hands are numb from the harsh bite of the water drops in the Cat's fur. She clears her throat softly and closes her eyes, listening to the sounds of dripping water in the corner of her cavern. "Heart?" she says. Heart makes a guttural noise to inform Elphaba that she is listening. "We will have no privacy."

"Beg pardon?"

Elphaba opens her eyes and sets the Cat's corpse on the rock floor of the cave. "Our identities are going to be revealed tomorrow."

"Yes, I suppose they are."

Elphaba coughs. "My identity is very important to me… My life could be in great danger if you or anyone finds out who I am."

A noise suggests that Heart has stood up. "We are all in that same dilemma, Elphaba."

"You do not understand, Heart. My features are very distinct and –"

"We all have distinct features, Fae. Ruby is a pureblood Quadling! How many full-on Quadlings do you see walking around the City? I heard a rumor that Sky isn't entirely human, either – not part Animal necessarily, just not fully human. We are all in danger just for being here and we all have features that could easily give us away. Our _voices_ could give us away, Fae."

Elphaba considers this. Heart is just one woman, just one member of the Resistance. Revealing her green skin may not be as great a threat as she initially thought. "You'll just have to trust me, Fae," says Heart. "That's all there is to it. Trust."

"_Beware those in which you have confidence, for they are not as trustworthy as you may believe." _But perhaps the Cat was referring to Elphaba's past on this subject – she had trust in Madame Morrible, in the Wizard, even in her father, and look what they had all done to her.

"Where will we meet?"

"I thought meeting in Lush Greenhouse would be appropriate," says Heart. "Back behind the goldenberry bushes at twelve o'clock."

"I'll be there." Elphaba stands and heads for the door. "Heart?"

"Yes?"

"Where exactly in the Vinkus are we going?"

"Kiamo Ko."

:---:

The glass walls of the gardening home are tinted green as everything else in the Emerald City. Elphaba can't help but notice that several panes have been shattered from things thrown during the Lurlinemas Eve events. The golden hands of the clock on the Emerald Palace designate a time that says eleven fifty-two; Elphaba is early.

She strolls through the aisles of plants, examining the different vegetables and flowers. The goldenberry bushes are in the back of the greenhouse and Elphaba steals a glance in their direction every few minutes. She nervously pushes her hat firmly on her head and clicks her tongue out of habit. "Come on, Heart, where are you," she mutters.

She stops walking to look out the windows at the clock again and is discouraged at the slight movement of the minute hand. Three hours ago, Elphaba would have given anything to avoid the meeting and the looming travels to the Vinkus, but now anxiety grips her stomach in a fist and she awaits Heart's arrival.

"May I help you, miss?"

The old man is the owner of the greenhouse and his white eyebrows are raised in a questioning way. Green spectacles rest on the end of his twisted nose and his skin is leathery. He has a kind, crooked smile and Elphaba feels a pang of guilt that she is using this old man's shop as a meeting place for a meeting of rebellion.

"No, thank you."

"All right." With a nod, the old man walks away.

She strolls through the store, attempting an appearance of browsing the strange and random herbs in front of her, though her emerald eyes are locked on the greenhouse door.

She begins examining the other customers in the shop, searching for someone who may be Heart. There is a tall, thin woman dressed in an aquamarine silk gown with her husband and two little girls. She has long golden curls and a tight mouth. There is a Cheetah in the corner of the store, something that surprises Elphaba – there are hardly any Animals left in the Emerald City and to see one exposed is next to nonexistent. But there are no other people in the greenhouse and Elphaba knows that Heart is not here yet.

The bell above the door jingles as the Palace clock chimes noon. Straightening her hat and adjusting her cloak, Elphaba steps back to the goldenberry bushes and pretends to examine the fat, yellow berries. Through the leaves of the bush, she examines the woman walking toward her – Heart is older than she expected, probably around Elphaba's own age, with hair is pulled back, but many dark curls have escaped from the attempted hairstyle. Her dress is dark brown, unusual in the City of Emeralds, made of a course fabric that suggests a lower class rank. A long, knitted scarf of a deep red color is wrapped around the woman's neck and trails almost to the ground behind her because of its great length. Elphaba feels guilty for laying eyes on Heart, feels as though she has betrayed the Resistance by breaking the code and having an identity revealed. She bites her lower lip nervously and her hands slide along the shelves of plants as she makes her way to the back of the greenhouse.

The girl steps behind the bushes and feigns interest in them as Elphaba does, her eyes never even look over Elphaba. Not even a glance. "Goldenberries are so nice, don't you agree?" says Elphaba.

"Uh, yes." The girl looks dreadfully uncomfortable.

Elphaba turns and faces her. "Pacis ut totus populus quod justicia ut totus Bestia." The slogan of the Resistance.

"Iuguolo Veneficus," says Heart in response. She smiles nervously.

The bell over the door lets out a ring again and a few rosy Quadling men enter the greenhouse. Elphaba thinks instantly of Ruby, but Ruby is female. Elphaba looks at Heart. "How are we traveling to the Vinkus?" Elphaba's mind is racing – why has Heart not asked about her peculiar skin condition?

"We'll travel with the winter caravan," says Heart.

Elphaba nods and turns to go, but Heart's hand clamps on her arm. "You will have to lead me," says Heart.

"What?"

"I'm blind."

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	4. III

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

**A/N:** I know, it's been almost a month… I'm really sorry. I've had exams all week and… well, I know you're not here for my excuses. Just… review. :-D

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

III.

"You're leaving us?"

Elphaba looks up at the old crone – something about that woman has irritated her since leaving the City. "Yes, we are. Kiamo Ko is our destination. Thank you for guiding us this far." Elphaba's words are bitter but she doesn't especially care.

The ancient woman smiles wickedly. "Oh, I'm afraid there would be no point in stopping here."

Elphaba sighs and tosses her bag down next to Heart's and begins rolling up her pallet. "Really." It would be a question, but Elphaba has no desire to converse with the hag and mentally begs her to leave.

"Yes, they're all dead."

Elphaba scoffs. She ties a rope around the cot to keep it rolled and rolls up Heart's cot – the blind woman has gone in search of food from other travelers.

"You don't believe Yackle, do you?"

_Yackle..._

The crone laughs. "Yackle knows everything – what you seek in Kiamo Ko is gone. Go back."

Elphaba looks up – the hag is gone. She shudders – where has she heard that name before? Yackle…

The caravan stopped for the night at the Ko Falls, and Elphaba can see the Great Kells in the distance. Crossing the river will be the hardest part of the journey, for winter is already beginning to melt away. The thought of the water's icy lurk beneath her feet makes the green woman shudder in a cold dread.

Heart is tossing and turning in her sleep – putting the Yackle crone from her mind, Elphaba kneels to try to wake the blind woman.

Elphaba gently cups her hands on Heart's shoulder and shakes her lightly, whispering her name. Heart gives a few moans and smacks at Elphaba, rolls over and shouts a warning to someone in her dream.

"Heart!" Elphaba hisses as firmly as she can.

Heart's eyes fly open, revealing her cold, blank stare. Her head turns wildly. "Hello? Who's there?"

"You were having another nightmare," Elphaba says.

"Is it already time to leave?" asks Heart, struggling to untangle her legs from the blankets; she has grown to recognize Fae's voice without explanation of who is speaking.

"Soon," says the green woman, taking Heart's bag and rummaging through it to find clothes for her to change into. "The sun will be rising soon and I am anxious to get away from these people."

Heart stands and Elphaba helps her change before rolling up the sightless woman's pallet and blankets. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Elphaba looks up. Heart's vacant eyes are shifting nervously and she's squeezing and rubbing her hands together to keep them warm. Her face has became pale and gaunt due to the cold and the lack of food they have had over the past weeks while traveling with the caravan and Elphaba knows she should send Heart to ask the other travelers for food.

"Heart, do you see in your dreams?"

"What?"

"You've been having nightmares for the past two weeks," Elphaba says, now tying the two pallets together. "I just wondered if you can see when you dream."

Heart is silent for a long time. She appears to be staring into the sky, to be studying the formation of the clouds, except for the blank look that reflects a world of emptiness.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" repeats Heart, her voice sharp and biting. Her eyebrows are furrowed and she is blinking quickly – her eyes glisten with the threat of unspilled tears.

Elphaba stands uneasily, finished at last with packing the bags. "Yes. We need food."

Heart nods and starts to leave, but trips on the bags. Elphaba steps to help her, but Heart pushes her off and runs away.

Something in Elphaba's head throbs suddenly with pain and she sits down and holds her head in her hands. She has ignored her hair, letting fly free in the cold winds of the Vinkus without bothering to plait it – one of the little girls had been begging Elphaba to let her braid her hair since they first left the City, but when Elphaba had finally agreed to it, the child's mother came over and snatched the little girl's hand, dragging her away from Elphaba half-way through the braid.

The sun has finally decided to show herself and one of the many pets traveling with the caravan comes running up to her, barking like the world was ending. "Shush!" Elphaba snaps. "You are going to wake them all up!"

"Fae?"

Elphaba is startled at the sound of Heart's voice and the wolf dog stops his barking and cocks his ears in her direction.

"Is that a _dog_?"

The young dog lets out a yip at Heart and leaps up into Elphaba's lap, licking at her jade neck with its rough tongue. "Yes," she says, an undertone of distaste in her voice. Heart breaks into a fit of giggles and Elphaba hisses at the dog, which only serves to encourage it.

"Oh Lurline, I am so sorry." A young man comes jogging up to them, his mop of dark hair blowing back in the wind. "Killyjoy, off!" The dog ignores the man and turns its attention to lapping at Elphaba hand. "I'm sorry… he's still young, not fully trained yet… Killyjoy, down!"

The man steps over to pick up Killyjoy – the wolf dog nips at his hands and he drops the pup, who immediately hides itself in Elphaba's skirts.

"You want to keep him?"

Elphaba looks up at him with a glare of loathing. "_Keep_ him?" she asks, revulsion lining her words.

"As a pet," he offers. "I've been trying to get rid of him; my sister gave him to me as a present for Lurlinemas… I'm allergic to him. She should be locked in the City's asylum, if that tells you anything." At the look on Heart's face, he adds, "She's not dangerous… just not completely sane."

The wolf dog peeks its nose out from behind Elphaba's skirt, then gently sinks his teeth into her calf.

"He likes you."

Elphaba decides mentally that the young man should be locked in the City's asylum as well.

:---:

"This just does not look especially appealing," says Elphaba, surveying the frozen Gillikin River.

The Ko Falls are frozen in all their glory. The tallest waterfall in Oz – when Elphaba was younger, she used to believe the myths that the Ko Falls never froze, that they were constantly cascading their crystalline waters. Now she sees these were false – all water freezes. The frozen water hangs in long, white cones, looming above them and threatening to come crashing down at any moment that it chooses.

Killyjoy suddenly lets out a bark and goes running toward the river. Heart lets out a cry, but Elphaba just smirks as she watches the dog's padded feet collide with the ice – he is sent sliding on the ice and glides toward the bank on the other side. He stops half-way and tries to stand, but his feet slide out from beneath him and he lands on his belly with a thud.

"Is he all right?" asks Heart.

"Fine," Elphaba says. "He would be stuck in the middle right now."

"Go get him!"

Elphaba winces – she knows it will burn. She thinks for a moment, then lowers herself onto the ground and glides out onto the solid river on her stomach. Her palms sting like fire from the ice, but she clamps her teeth down on her tongue as hard as she can to distract her from the pain. She sticks her fists in the air and uses her elbows to inch her way forward, toward the now-whimpering dog.

It takes too long to reach the dog – Elphaba sticks her arm out and places her hand on the dog's furry little body. Shoving as hard as she can, Elphaba watches as the dog slides across the river to the bank on the other side.

And, with a sigh, Elphaba turns around to go back and get Heart.

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	5. IV

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

**A/N: **Updates twice in one week… shocker. Sorry this is kind of short, but I think it's necessary… thanks.

* * *

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

IV.

Elphaba stands on top of the snowy hill, looking down at a blackened village. Heart is shivering beside her, her scarf wrapped tightly and her arms crossed. Elphaba is so numb from the cold that she is almost entirely unaware of the burning sensation of the individual tears that slowly roll down her cheeks.

She didn't even know them but she cannot help but feel an enormous sense of guilt from what she sees. Was she, essentially, the cause of the destruction of this village? She did, after all, keep their prince away from them for a lengthy time. Would his presence have helped to protect them? Something is telling her no, but something greater is telling her that yes, if Fiyero had been here, the villagers would still be alive and their homes would still be standing.

Killyjoy is silent.

Elphaba drags her feet as she walks slowly down the hill. Heart's hand is on her shoulder and she stumbles along behind, a clumsy excuse for a companion.

The village has been burned to the ground; that much is obvious. Charred frames of houses, somehow still standing. Piles of gray ash. A dead body, blackened from burnings, lying in the center of the village. Elphaba wipes at the tears, now suddenly aware of their inflicting pain.

"Fae? What's wrong? Are we there?"

Elphaba gives no response.

"Fae?"

Elphaba now realizes she is holding her breath and quickly releases it. At the end of the road are three tall poles with three bodies hanging from them, burned and hanged to death simultaneously. Elphaba's shoes crunch on the snow and she walks reluctantly through the village toward the bodies – somehow she already knows whose bodies they are.

On every pole, every stick, every rod that stands in the village there is a long piece of paper nailed to it. Elphaba's eyes have purposely avoided the slanted script that is written on these rolls of parchment due to the ugly, green wax seal at the bottom of each one; the Wizard's seal. She doesn't need to read the paper to know what happened here.

The middle hanging body is a woman – what's left of her burnt hair is hanging in thin strings. Her skin is burnt black, as are the smaller bodies hanging on either side of her. The noose around her neck looks ready to give out from the weight and its own weakening from the fires.

And indeed the rope gives out and the body comes falling to the ground. A piece of paper comes out of her hand, placed their by those who burned her long after she was dead. Elphaba picks up the paper, fighting fiercely to hold back a moan of mourning as she reads the words written:

_Princess Sarima of the Arjiki_

Elphaba knows who the hanging children are; she has heard Fiyero speak of them so fondly before. The smallest one, just a babe, must be Nor – the bigger one, a boy, is either Irji or Manek. Elphaba no longer remembers which was which and doesn't even bother to wonder why there are only two children instead of three.

Elphaba suddenly drops to her knees and lets out a dry sob; a wail; a shouting cry of frustration.

_Fiyero._

The tears burn fiercely now, worse than ever before; she doesn't care. She sits and rocks back and forth, crying, sobbing.

Another dry sob; the tears are giving up.

"Fiyero!" she shouts, hatred and love edging her voice.

"It's not your fault," Heart whispers, now crying as well.

"How would you know?" Elphaba shouts bitterly. "It's all my fault. If he hadn't – if _I_ hadn't –"

"Fae –"

"Don't call me that! Don't _ever_ call me that!" The dog lets out a yip. "Shut up!"

Heart is silent and Elphaba stands there, sobbing dryly into her hands. The dog barks again and nips gently at Elphaba's leg; she kicks it, sending it sprawling several feet away, whimpering in pain.

Elphaba looks up, her eyes big and full of unspilt tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Heart. I can't do this."

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Please review!


	6. V

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

**A/N:** Sorry it has been so long. I've been working on other fics… I know, I know, no excuses. But here it is and hopefully I'll be getting around to this more often…

* * *

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

V.

Lady Glinda of Gillikin has been riding on various forms of boats since she left Munchkinland almost three weeks ago. Her gowns were absolutely filthy and she was not sure when she had last bathed. The sailors were the worst part, though, in their disgusting way of attempting to seduce her.

"Hey, look, fellas," a sailor had hooted as she boarded the first boat, "It's a angel!"

"I'll fix that," a second sailor chimed in, sending out a roaring laugh from the crew. Glinda had turned up her nose, tossed her flaxen curls, and walked in the other direction.

The only thing that had kept her going was the knowledge of Nessarose back in Nest Hardings, her white stomach round, carrying the child of an unknown man. The poor creature had been raped months ago and, though at first she had appealed to Glinda for fashion ideas to hide the bulging stomach, eventually she had to tell the truth and now even Nanny was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new babe, despite the unfortunate circumstances under which the child had been conceived.

The Eminent Thropp herself had appealed to Glinda and asked her to travel to the Vinkus in search for Fiyero. Glinda had speculated on her return to Shiz that there was unspoken tension between Nessarose and the Vinkusian Prince, but of course Nessarose's spiritual purity and Fiyero's loveless marriage had forbidden anything to evolve between them. Glinda decided it was a pity, because Nessarose could use someone to love her at this time.

Frexspar had locked himself away when he found out that Nessarose had laid with a man, even if it had been against her will. Glinda could not figure out the details in full, but she knew it had something to do with his feeling of betrayal. "I thought at least you would remain pure," he had spat at poor Nessie before disappearing into his room. The moans of pain and pleasure that emerged from that room allowed many suspicious eyes to trail in the direction of his door and many minds, including Glinda's, had begun wondering what exactly the priest was doing in there.

But Glinda had agreed to travel westward for Fiyero. Under normal circumstances, she would have offered to travel to the City of Emeralds first and conduct a search for Nessarose's sister, but the war prevented her from doing so.

A woman calling herself General Ginger had led an attack on the Emerald City, along with a rebel army of men and women from all over Oz. Rumors said they were against the Wizard's discrimination again the Animals, although the Wizard publicly denied any connection with the declining intellectual value of the Animals. The Wizard had demanded help from Glinda, for he and Madame Morrible had turned Glinda's life around. She was a public figure now, and she was in debt to him. So Gillikin had entered the war on the City's side.

The war was thrown out of balance for a while, with the rebel army losing severely. Then the tables turned wickedly and everything was thrown out of proportion when Munchkinland and the Quadlings enter the conflict on the revolting soldiers' side. Glinda was working on flipping Gillikin to the rebel side, but Nessarose's pregnancy had called her away.

Nessarose did not speak much of the reasons behind Munchkinland's entrance on the rebel side, but Shell and Boq spoke of politics so often that Glinda was almost able to understand what they talking about. Apparently the Munchkinlanders were currently interested in becoming a free state, independent of the Ozian government and the rebels had promised them self-government in return for their support. The Eminent Thropp was all but forced to join in the revolution by the farmers.

The boat's connection with solid land is welcome relief to Glinda's stomach and she departs the ship as quickly as she can, paying a rosy-skinned sailor extra to bring her plump bags down for her. She adjusts her crown regally and pats her pale tresses into place.

The Ko Falls drop off not far away and Glinda spreads her skirts on the ground and sits to munch on sandwiches while the men, stripped shirtless and sweating like hogs, drag the boat onto shore and guide it down to the waters below. She sees the towers of Kiamo Ko in the distance and thanks Lurline that the journey from here out resides on solid ground.

:---:

There are no formalities when Glinda arrives at Kiamo Ko. She raps her knuckles on the rotting oak door and waits impatiently, her hip jutted out to the side. She hears iron locks being unfastened from their rusty holders and the door swings open, revealing a darkened interior. Glinda delicately steps inside, her eyes trained on the aging tapestries that disguise the ancient castle walls. The door behind her swings shut and the blonde jumps, turning to see a tall, thin figure hidden in the shadows of the corner.

"Miss Galinda of the Arduennas," says Elphaba in her leering, sarcastic tone.

"It's been long since I heard that name," the Gillikinese figure says, setting her bags down.

"I suppose the Wizard has given you a more fanciful title now?" Elphaba steps out into the light that falls from the windows, revealing slit eyes and a smirking mouth. Glinda's lips are pursed and she blinks slowly, showing her distaste at the truth in Elphaba's tone of mockery.

"Where is Fiyero?" asks Glinda curtly. "I have business with him."

Elphaba's sea-green eyes show pain but she looks away and emits a snort. "You have business with no one, Miss Glinda," she says, walking to a glassless window. "You have only gossip and details of the latest fashions and, if you're lucky, a tidbit of news that may be slightly informative."

Glinda is hurt by her former colleague's words, but says nothing. She instead walks toward a room that seems like it could have been a parlor once, but for overturned tables and the torn, blood-stained carpets and the moth-eaten sofas. "Where is Fiyero?" she asks again.

"He's not here," says Elphaba, patting her hair and pretending to be composed.

Glinda is not fooled. "Oh, Elphie, is he –"

"Do not call me that," the green woman snaps. "I'm Elphaba… nothing more, nothing less. Maybe nothing at all." She turns and says, with her back to Glinda, "Would you like tea? It's a long trip here from Gillikin."

Glinda nods, but realizes Elphaba cannot see her and says, "Yes." Elphaba walks out quickly, leaving Glinda to collect her thoughts and prepare a lengthy explanation.

When Elphaba returns, there is a second woman with her, holding Elphaba's elbow. She has a glazed look in her eye and she wears a long, blood-red scarf round her neck. Elphaba introduces the woman as Miss Heart and Glinda senses that the relationship between the two women implies less than friendship.

Throughout Glinda's story, Elphaba shifts uncomfortably and her eyes flicker frequently in Heart's direction. Heart, in turn, seems surprised at details that Elphaba's own features remain neutral on – Nessarose's ascent to the Eminent Thropp position and even Elphaba's own name. Both women are keenly interested in the war, however, and when she is through, they speculate over things she did not expect:

"Could this general girl be from the Resistance?"

"There was a Ginger," the blind woman replied, her brow furrowed in deep thought. "It would make sense, except I would expect Raven to lead a revolt."

"Perhaps it is for Raven's protection," Elphaba says thoughtfully, "so she can lead Oz after the war is over, or continue to guide the Resistance members should the rebel army fail. Or maybe Raven is dead." She says this last bit with no emotion, sending a white wave of shock through Glinda.

"At any rate," the Gillikinese woman interrupted, "your sister is in a time of need, Elphaba. Should she die in childbirth, Munchkinland will be without an eminent."

"Shell can lead," says Elphaba, standing. "If I remember him right, he always was the type to lead." She smirks. "He's probably a man-whore."

"Elphie!" Glinda jumps up and Elphaba winces at Glinda's shrill shout. Glinda straightens her skirts and tosses her hair over her shoulder. "Are you coming back with me?" she asks quietly.

"Yes," says Elphaba. Heart clears her throat as if to say something, but stays silent. "We have been here months, Heart," the green woman says. "It's a wonder we're still alive. My sister needs me, and after her time of need has ended we will go to the City and fight in the war. We are not abandoning our duties." Now Elphaba sounds as though she is trying to convince herself more than Heart. "Our duties abandoned us."

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Please review! 


	7. VI

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

**A/N:** For those who like behind-the-scenes details, Viridis/Ginger is General Jinjur from L. Frank Baum's _The Marvelous Land of Oz._

* * *

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

VI.

The focus is no longer on saving the Animals – indeed, the war is now far, far deeper than that. Ozians as a whole are being persecuted. Viridis has seen it with her own eyes: the torture chambers the Gale Force have secreted away beneath the Emerald Palace, the hair they pluck one-by-one from the bodies of Animals and humans alike. She's heard the low, rumbling laughter of the Force generals, their murmurs. "Well now humans and Animals are being treated equally," one had spat, "d'you thinks they'll leave now?" Laughter rose from the torturers and the screams got louder.

She has seen the Quadlings and the Vinkusian people and the Munchkinlanders, their hair cut short, their bones jutting from their bodies from food deprivation. She has seen the Animals with their fur shaved off, their mouths muzzled and their paws tied to poles, being carried around upside-down while their eyes look around in fear. She has seen the evil side of the Wizard of Oz and she is ready to do what it takes.

But for Viridis, even the sight of the dying Animals does not stir her anger like Raven's death. It had been a quick and painless death with no arguments, exactly the way Raven had not wanted to go. A soldier with ridiculously long whiskers had ridden up on his steed, sword in hand, and cleanly sliced the independent woman's head from her body. Viridis shed a single tear for Raven, which landed on the woman's chapped lips and slipped into her mouth. She hasn't cried since.

Viridis has taken over the Resistance since then, under her alias – Ginger. She leads the Army of Revolt with a cold shoulder, a cool temper, a keen eye, a harsh tongue. The battles grow more intense each day as more and more soldiers are gruesomely killed, as innocent people and harmless Animals are destroyed.

It had started as a disgusting genocide of the Animals, but now the Wizard had turned against the entire land. She leans over the side of her cot and spits on the ground as she thinks of the Wizard – she hates calling him that, for she knows he is a fraud. Indeed, half the world knows that the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz is actually a sneaky ventriloquist with pounds of luck on his side. Viridis, among others, suspects that he doesn't even think of or create his own disguises, but there is little proof for either argument and plenty against both so the truth has remained quiet for all this time, for fear of the wrath of the Good and Giving Wizard.

Viridis rolls over the side of the cot and her naked body collides with the cold, hard earth beneath her. Sitting up, she runs calloused hands in circles on her muscled stomach, and down her legs. Someone stamps their feet thrice outside the tent flap and sticks a hand in. "May I enter, General?" a man's voice asks.

Viridis stands and envelopes herself in a long blue dressing gown, a fanciful garment not expected on the rough-and-tumble woman. Tying the sash she verbally admits the man's entrance and he steps inside, saluting her, though she can still see his surprise at her informal state of undress. He is a short man, undoubtedly of the Munchkinland blood like her, with a silver-gray hair and wrinkles around the eyes. Yet his vibrant eyes reveal a younger age than that which his skin and hair suggest, confirming her assumption of his Munchkin background – those Munchkinlanders which have inherited the stereotypical shorting genes tend to look much older than they are. "At ease," she says and the man relaxes his chest and shoulder, clasps his hands behind his back, and takes a step so his feet are shoulder-width apart. "State your name, soldier."

"Boq," he says nervously. "Boq of Munchkinland. I have come requesting a time off."

"And what is the reason that you are requesting this leave of absence?"

Boq of Munchkinland shifted his weight from left foot to right foot and back again to left. His eyes darted around anxiously and Viridis turns to sit at a chair facing a mirror, her back to the nervous Munchkinlander. She begins pinning up her long curls, eyes fixated on the reflection of Boq of Munchkinland. "I recently received a letter from my wife," he says, "and a friend of ours from university is having a child."

"What is your point?" she asks. Her lips are pursed and the bland taste in her mouth is bitter. "I do not see how this relates to you, soldier."

Boq of Munchkinland lets out an exasperated sigh. "The friend is Nessarose, the Eminent Thropp." Viridis cocks an eyebrow. "My wife and I have been asked to be the godparents of this child since, as I'm sure you know, ma'am, the Eminent Thropp is highly religious woman."

Viridis stands and draws the silk dressing gown closer as she steps across the room. "You're married, Boq of Munchkinland?" He nods. "You have children, no doubt?" Boq mutters his confirmation. "Yes… Yes, we can do without you, I think. You are free to go, Sir Boq," she tells him. "You need not return either, unless you ultimately feel compelled. The Army can continue without your services, but your family cannot. Tell the Eminent I wish her and her child all the best."

A wave of relief sweeps over Boq of Munchkinland's face. He salutes General Ginger, thanks her profusely, and steps out of the tent.

Viridis must be feeling especially kind today. She does not usually permit leaves of absence. Stepping into her boots, Viridis hurries out into the gray weather. A fat raindrop lands on her nose.

"We will conquer the Emerald Palace by sundown!" she announces to her troops.

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Please review!


	8. VII

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

**A/N:** Been a while again, and I apologize. Here's the next installment. I'm not especially fond of this chapter, but I think it's needed anyway. We will return to Elphaba, Glinda, and Heart in the next chapter.

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

VII.

A breeze finally blows in through the open window, moving the lavender silk curtains ever so slightly. She feels hungry again, assorted cravings for random foods making her mouth water. The cloth on her forehead, once wet with chilly water, is now dry and Nessarose parts her chapped lips to call out for someone to wet it again. Her belly is too round for her to stand anymore, but the physicians still expect another month before Nessarose gives birth. Odd, considering the rape happened nearly ten months ago.

Nanny has explained away the abnormal roundness of Nessarose's stomach as being twins or even triplets. Nanny also predicted that the babies would be born with three yellow eyes and at least one of them would be two-headed and every head would have a set of razor-sharp teeth.

Everyone laughed at Nanny's predictions, but the thought slipped through Nessarose: _Anything's possible._ Considering Nessarose doesn't even know if the rapist was human, she could give birth to another deformed Thropp girl. Green, armless, and now two-headed.

Nanny comes hobbling in, trying to lean on her walking stick and carry a bowl of rose-water. "Someone is here to see you," Nanny tells Nessarose. "A man calling himself Boq and his wife and there must be five or seven children. They is requesting to see you, Miss Nessie. Nanny will be telling them to go away, Nanny is dismissing them, Nanny will seeing to it that Miss Nessie gets her rest and Nanny will see to it that Miss Nessie is not being disturbed." Nanny goes on chattering in the third person as she sets down the wooden bowl on a table by the bed and peels the rag from Nessarose's skin, dips it in the rose-water, wrings it out, and replaces it back on Nessarose's forehead.

The old woman picks up the bowl and begins to limp out of the room. "Send them in," says Nessarose. Nanny shakes her head in disapproval as she exits.

Nessarose breathes in deeply, taking in the slight aroma of the rose-water. The liquid runs down her nose and cheeks, drawing lines on her sticky skin. Munchkinland is experiencing a summer heat and Nessarose wonders now and again if the Unnamed God is cursing her lands for opposing the great leader He set into the Emerald Throne. But then she thinks that it is always possible that Our Wizard is using his powerful magic to bring heat into Munchkinland to kill the farms, the main produce of the Munchkinlanders, so the country will turn to help him. Oz has become so much more complicated since she took over as Eminent Thropp.

Nessarose's memory of the rape was horribly vague and she couldn't decide which would be worse – knowing or not knowing. She remembers being in her sanctuary, the chapel beneath the mansion. She heard the door open and the millions of candles all went out at once. Footsteps, and then gloved hands were on her, tying her up and ripping off her clothing.

After that the memory was gone. She doesn't remember any contact with fur or skin, just waking up hours later, naked and in pain, lying in a pool of bright red blood.

Boq enters. He has aged so much since their Shiz days, his curly hair now silver and his skin wrinkled. Milla follows her husband, wringing her hands. Her dark hair has been swept up and her drab clothing is dusty, an appearance Nessarose never expected to see from one of the Shiz girls. They were always so very pretty and preppy and pink and posy that now, years later, it's difficult to connect this down-to-earth woman with one of those posy girls from Shiz.

"I'm so glad you came," Nessarose says, making a vain attempt to sit up. "The physicians say it's to be a boy, but the symptoms as designated by the Unnamed God suggest a girl."

"Symptoms?" Milla asks.

"I am warmer at night than at day, I crave grapes more than any other food, the child is overdue… things like that." Boq raises his eyebrows and he and Milla exchange a look that Nessarose recognizes as disbelief, but she ignores it – she has always known them as Lurlinists, so she expects nothing less. "I am to have godparents for my child," she says, "because there is no father. Well, there is a father, but he is an unknown variable." Milla nods solemnly at Nessarose's words – she understands them. Boq looks slightly confused, but when was he not?

"The ceremony will be three days after the birth, as is custom." Nessarose begins chatting away, telling them of the different names she has selected for her baby girl: "It's tradition to name a girl after a saint or a family member, but it's difficult to come up with a name that I like that resembles one of these two branches. I would be dead before I named another child after St. Aelphaba. I rather like the notion of naming the girl after St. Glinda, but I'm afraid that I would be dreadfully confusing. My father had a sister named Polychrome, after St. Polychrome of course, but St. Polychrome was not an especially clever one, was she? Of course not, she supposedly fell from the sky claiming to be the daughter of the _rainbow_, how foolish is that? (1) I could name the child Chrome and say the name had no connection to St. Polychrome and was chosen for my father's sister, but the connection is still there, so I've decided not to use Polychrome in anyway. I love the name Aurex, (2) but she was Kumbricia's assistant and no good could come out naming a child after a…"

Nessarose rattles on and on about baby girl names and Boq cannot help but decide that he hopes the baby is a boy.

By the time Nessarose has stopped talking about baby names, Boq and Milla are sitting on the bed, waiting for her to finish. At last, she asks them for suggestions for names; they just agree with the names she has already listed.

Boq has to ask: "What do you plan to name the child if it's a boy?"

"Tip." (3)

Boq has another question: "Has Elphaba heard of your pregnancy?"

Nessarose sniffs haughtily. "We haven't heard from Elphaba since she left Shiz. She could be dead for all we know, and it would hardly make the difference anyway. She was never a suitable sister or daughter, so how on earth could she possibly make a suitable aunt? I don't care about Elphaba. I hope she _is_ dead."

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(1) Polychrome was in the original Oz books, first appearing in _The Road to Oz._ She was the Daughter of the Rainbow and fell to the ground and got lose, so she joined Dorothy and her friends.

(2) Lady Aurex was a courtier in the court of Queen Coo-ee-oh in the original Oz book, _Glinda of Oz. _Queen Coo-ee-oh was a proud, 16-year-old girl who claimed to be the only Krumbic Witch (bad witch) in the world. The Krumbic Witch is mentioned in _Wicked_ in the form of Kumbricia, the root of all evil in the world.

(3) Tip is short for Tippetarius. Mombi, a witch in the original Oz books, captured Princess Ozma and disguised her as a boy named Tip. Tip appeared in _The Marvelous Land of Oz. _In _Wicked_, the Ozma that has gone missing is called "Ozma Tippetarius." Also, Mombi and Tip make a brief appearance in _Son of a Witch.

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_

Please review!


	9. VIII

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

**A/N:** I know, I know, a month. I'm really sorry. I keep losing track, plus I was in Romeo and Juliet (as Romeo) so I had to deal with that before updating again... here is, though, hopefully good enough to make up for my absence...

* * *

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

VIII.

"Sweet Lurline, you must be joking."

Glinda's face is screwed up into a look that Elphaba can't decide is either disgust or fear. Kumbricia's Pass, a great area of flat land between the Great Kells and an unnamed mountain range, lies out before the three women, looking to Elphaba to be plain and boring and rather uninviting altogether. The only thing creepy that Elphaba can see is the way the sun is setting in the distance – not yellow or orange or gold, but blood-red, and it fills the whole sky with a chilling shade of crimson.

"We've got to camp here," states Elphaba simply. "The sun's already setting and if we go any farther we'll have to camp in the mountains."

"Better the mountains than Kumbricia's Pass," says Glinda, a shadow falling across her face. "This the most unlucky spot in all of Oz," she says suspiciously.

"I don't believe in luck," says Heart, who is already struggling to get the pack off her back. Glinda learned quickly not to offer to help Heart set up her bed, for the blind woman is extremely sensitive to doing simple things by herself.

Glinda isn't unpacking with her companions; she is squinting over the land, searching for anything suspicious. The call of a hawk overhead makes her jump. "Seven years ago, a man and a boy _vanished_ here." She pauses for dramatic effect. "Did you hear me? They were the last to dare enter into the Pass, though they certainly were not the first. We shouldn't be here." But Elphaba and Heart have already laid out their pallets and have begun undressing. "I can't sleep," she states, tossing her pale curls so the red light glints off them menacingly.

"You haven't even tried," insists Heart. "Besides, we're not saying we have to go to sleep immediately. I think we should stay up and tell _ghost stories._" She reaches out and grabs Glinda's silky skirt, tugging gently and making Glinda yelp and whirl around, flailing her arms.

"That's not funny," she snaps as Heart chuckles. She sticks out her lower lip in a pout as Elphaba unrolls a bundle of blankets and tosses one at Heart, who begins sorting her way out of it. "I won't be able to sleep!" she reminds them.

"So stay up all night and keep watch," says Elphaba informally, lying down on her cot. "I don't really care. If we die, we die." She lies down, not bothering to pull up the blanket.

Glinda is frantic: "'_If we die, we die'?_ Have you gone _insane?_" Her lip curls as she sees Elphaba's thin lips spread in a smirk. Glinda drops her bags and sits down on them, crossing her arms, her massive skirt billowing around her. Killyjoy comes running up from where they had walked, a fat black rat clutched in his jaws. The dog, who has taken a peculiar liking to Glinda, to her disgust, trots over to her and climbs up onto her lap, leaving a trail of miniature footprints running up her skirt. The dog drops the rat in her lap, cocks his head, and pants while he looks at her fixedly for approval.

Elphaba whips around when she hears Glinda spontaneously combust; she is hopping up and down, screaming at the dog, who looks terrified. She looks at the rat as though it is not just a dead rodent, but more like a mountain of dead rodents. Heart emits a snicker, laughing at the ridiculously high pitch Glinda's voice has taken on.

When Glinda has calmed down, Elphaba has a hard time not laughing at the sight of her: her perfect hair is tangled and falling in her face; her dress is wrinkled and twisted around her body in a way that Elphaba can't tell which way it's supposed to go; her eyes are blazing with fury, glaring at the dog, who sits on a boulder, his head cocked, gazing at Glinda curiously.

"Glinda," Elphaba manages to say, "it is a dead rat…. This must be why people are so superstitious of this place; one little rumor and suddenly dead rats are bad omens and hawks are death threats. Glinda, go to sleep." Elphaba retreats, slipping down to her pallet and lying flat on her back.

"Fine!" Glinda says. "Fine. I'll just sit down. Here. And think. Alone. By myself." She puts her elbows on her knees and cups her chin in her hands, her lower lip trembling.

The sun is nearly gone once more, the giant red orb almost completely sunk into the distant horizon. The sky has gone velvety black, bringing a sort of comfort down around Elphaba. It is strange; the one place in Oz that most would say is the most hazardous location in the world is where Elphaba feels true comfort, true safety. The starless sky brings a sort of relief down on Elphaba, and the rising full moon also brings reassurance, as though promising to protect her from harm. Turning and looking up at Glinda, still moping, Elphaba attempts a realistic smile. "Glinda, come on. Come to bed."

Apparently the smile was realistic enough, because Glinda lets out a whiney sigh and gets up to find her pallet, though she is whimpering about full moons and starless nights and bad omens. Elphaba closes her eyes and ignores her; for what feels like the first time in a long time, Elphaba feels calm. Exhausted, she begins to drift slowly into a darkened world… a world of peace… a world of unity… a world of equal rights… a world of rest… a world of–

Glinda's shrieks jolt Elphaba's slumber and she jumps up, quickly unsheathing the knife at her hip; Heart, too, has sat up in her bed, her head cocked, listening for some kind of assurance that Glinda is all right. Elphaba's eyes narrow and her jaw sets as she realizes that Killyjoy had taken the liberty of prancing on Glinda's face, leaving a set of muddy tacks running across her delicate features. "That _dog_," Glinda spits out threateningly.

Elphaba is lying on the ground again without even realizing she has lowered herself, her knife secured again in its sheath. She drifts into a compromising sort of half-sleep for a bit before Glinda screams again, but this time Elphaba ignores her. Glinda is letting out short spurts of noise, and from what Elphaba can tell with her eyes shut Glinda is trying to form words. Elphaba lazily opens one eye – "Hello."

Elphaba flips around, standing up in a whirlwind of cloak and skirt, her dagger in her hand. The boy jumps back, a sloppy grin spread across his face. "Give me one good reason to not kill you," she whispers dangerously.

He cocks an eyebrow at her, clearly doubting that she would use the dagger, but responds anyway: "I'm th' on'y one t'ever pass through th' valley 'n' live."

Glinda lets out a whimper from behind Elphaba and whispers, "Elphie, put the knife down." Elphaba lowers her arm, but her grip on the knife does not loosen and her posture remains every bit as tense. "Who are you?" Glinda asks, her voice high with nerves.

It is only as the boy puts his long swords away simultaneously does Elphaba realize he had a bladed weapon in each hand, thus the reason for his cocky smirk and raised eyebrow. Long dirty locks frame the boy's pinched face, the face of a boy who has grown too much in a short time and not had enough to eat. Even in the dark Elphaba can see the fine hairs that grow thick on the boy's face and her eyes travel quickly up the thin arms, freakishly muscular. He extends one knobby hand ornamented with dirty fingernails. "M'name's Ojo. 'Ojo the Unlucky' (1)t'm'friends 'n' fam'ly. Not that I've act'ly seen'm 'n a while or anyfing." Elphaba shakes the boy's hand firmly and he grins with satisfaction, taking a step back to survey her. "Never met a wench wif green skin b'fore."

Elphaba forces a small smile and withdraws her hand, making a show of wiping it off on her skirt. Ojo smirks again. "Fig'res," he states simply. "Years since I b'n'n civ'lized comp'ny an' o' c'rse ya'd wipe yer hand off." He jumps down from his position on the boulder to Glinda's cot. Again he extends his hand, "Ojo the Unlucky," he says.

Glinda eyes the hand distastefully and ultimately ignores it. She scans his bony body and licks her lips with discomfort at the lack of clothing hanging onto the boy – a pair of tattered pants, flapping lazily in the dry wind, is the only garment saving this Ojo from nakedness. He grins at her, displaying a mouthful of yellowed teeth, then slowly lowers his hand. Raising one perfectly-plucked eyebrow, Glinda asks, "Why do they call you 'the Unlucky'?"

The boy leans back from his crouched position, landing on his rump very ungracefully, crossing his legs in a sitting position. "I 'as born on Friday th' Thirteenth," he explains, "plus I'm lef' han'ed, plus I got a wart un'er my righ' arm." He turns and lifts his right arm to display the wart to Elphaba, who gives a faint smile and nods to the boy to demonstrate that she saw the wart. He turns around to show Glinda, but she erupts into a coughing fit and waves at him distractedly to continue. "Tha's it, re'lly," he says, shrugging. "'Though now I s'pose you cou'd add th' fac' tha' I been livin' in Kumbricia's Pass for sebben years."

"Seven years?" asks Heart, startling Glinda and the boy. Ojo nods and Glinda quickly voices the boy's response for him, whispering loudly to Ojo an explanation on Heart's eyesight. "I'm blind, not deaf, Glinda," says Heart bitterly. "How old were you when you were deserted? You can't be over fifteen."

Ojo's eyes narrow. "Lucky guess," he says resentfully. "I 'as eight. My Munchkinlan'er unc 'as bringin' me t' some Kvon Altar, 'n' we got lost in th' Pass 'n' 'ttacked b' a kalidah."

"What's an unc?" Glinda asked curiously.

"My Unc Nunkie (2)," says Ojo. "Uncle. Father's brother."

"Kvon Altar?"

At this, Ojo gives a shrug and spits lazily on his hand, rubbing at a mud stain on his lean stomach. "I 'ardly know what that is," he says. "I suspicion it's somefing t' do wif me bein' unlucky, but I re'lly don' know."

"It is," says Elphaba on a sudden, massaging her mind for passing words from her classes at Shiz and words from her own father. "Kvon Altar is like a haven for monks – a church, I presume, a sanctuary of sorts. A place where the 'holy priests of the Unnamed God gather to pray and to worship and to baptize.' Perhaps it was that your uncle was taking you there to have you baptized and to have the monks pray over you to erase the misfortune in you." She pauses, tapping her fingers together. "Strange though, that your uncle should take you… should be your father, really…"

Ojo's features seem to harden slightly as she speaks these last words. "My father's dead," he states curtly. "My fault, that one." Elphaba scowls at the look of curiosity on Glinda's face, but Ojo notices it and explains: "I shattered a mirror and – "

"There's no such thing as luck," Elphaba says sternly, repeating Heart's earlier denial.

"– and the shards of glass tore him apart," Ojo finishes. "He bled to death." The blood drains from Elphaba's face, lightening her skin to a paler green than she thought was possible.

"I – I'm sorry," she stutters, "I know what's it like to…"

He shakes his head. "I was six," he says gently, "I hardly knew him." She nods shortly and he gives what she sees as a feeble attempt at a smile.

"Well then, your family was compiled of mostly women, then?"

"All except Unc Nunkie."

"That explains it then – women are expressly forbidden from Kvon Altar, so the closest male relative attends with the 'victim.' I presume that the only reason my own father never took me to Kvon was because of the female forbiddance." Ojo looks uncomfortable, as though unsure what to say after this; Elphaba's eyes shift to Glinda, who is sleeping sitting up. Heart is lying on her pillow, facing them, her eyes shut as well, but Elphaba can tell that the blind woman is still awake. A glance at Ojo signals to Elphaba that the conversation is over and she kneels back on her pallet. "I would offer you a cot, but we have no extras and –"

Ojo puts his hand up, shaking his head. "I won' sleep anyway," he says. "I haven' slep' since the k'lidah killed my unc. I'll keep watch." He smiles kindly and settles himself in the midst of the three cots, taking up the work at starting a fire with a few feeble sticks and strips of bark.

Lying down, Elphaba looks up at Ojo as she begins to drift towards a half-sleep again. "Where did you get the swords?" she asks, her voice already heavy.

Ojo smiles oddly at her as flames began to flicker. "Go to sleep, Elphaba," he says.

And Elphaba's last thought as she drifts into a foreign sleep is that she could swear that she never told him her name.

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(1) A character first appearing L. Frank Baum's _The Patchwork Girl of Oz. _He was known as Ojo the Unlucky because he was born on Friday the Thirteenth, was left-handed, and had a wart under his right arm.

(2) A character first appearing in L. Frank Baum's _The Patchwork Girl of Oz_. The uncle and care-taker of Ojo the Unlucky.

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Please review! 


	10. IX

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.

_Author's Note: An update? So soon? That's right, there is not another month's wait for the next chapter of Resistance!

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_

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

IX.

Elphaba wakes with a start; the sky is still a deep violet-blue and Ojo's fire seems to have burned itself out. She lies for a moment, staring up at the starless darkness, before remembering Ojo's words: "I won' sleep anyway. I haven' slep' since the k'lidah killed my unc. I'll keep watch." So if Ojo does not sleep, how did the fire burn out?

She sits up quickly and her head collides with something hard; looking up, she sees Ojo standing over her, holding out a sword in one hand and a large rock, which had hit her head, in the other. He looks down at her, his eyes glowing with some sort of emotion that sends a chill rushing down her spine, and hisses for her to remain silent.

Elphaba looks around quickly; Heart is still lying on her pallet, blank eyes open and head cocked, listening for noise or a sound that might signal what is going on; Glinda has moved herself into a groove between two boulders, gathering her vast skirt in to cushion her, and is peering wide-eyed over the handkerchief she is using to suppress her sobs. Elphaba raises her eyebrows at Glinda and she frivolously points in the opposite direction.

In the sandy gloom of Kumbricia's Pass sits the bulk of a mysterious beast. Elphaba squints to see, but her eyes still perceive nothing but a sinister form pacing dangerously. She shifts to reach for her dagger, but Ojo firmly places a foot on her ribs, preventing movement. "What is it?" she whispers as quietly as she can.

"K'lidah," is the boy's dark reply.

Elphaba's heart is suddenly thumping wildly and she squirms to rid herself of Ojo's bare foot and reaches again for her dagger. Pulling it out but remaining flat on the ground, she looks up at Ojo. "Plan?"

"Kill it."

"Spare me so many specifications."

Elphaba turns her head, hoping for a glimpse of the animal; the kalidah has begun pacing back and forth, still a shady mass of mystery, though now low growls clearly thunder in her ears as the kalidah surveys the small camp.

On a sudden, a light appears above Elphaba as Ojo holds a torch high up. Turning her head quickly, she examins the prowling monster; she has only ever seen pictures of kalidahs before, in Life Sciences class at Shiz and in the occasional storybook of Nanny's, for Nanny's storybooks were always gruesome in showing the deadliest of details, right down to the wolf licking the blood off his lips after eating the little girl. The pictures and drawings, however, do no justice to the horrible sight of the kalidah; the body of an enormous bear paces back and forth and the great head of a tiger rests on the bear's shoulders, bearing the fangs of a snake and solid black eyes. A headless rattlesnake attached to the bear's rear serves as a vicious tail, whipping back and forth violently.

The kalidah lets out a sudden roar of anger, standing on its hind legs and moving itself up to its full height and potential; upward the kalidah is nearly ten feet tall, barrel-chested, and fiere-looking. It scrapes at the air with dangerous paws decorated with long, thick claws.

Without warning, the kalidah charges toward them. Glinda lets out a shrill scream and begins whispering prayers to Lurline and Heart's face is fixed in an expression of confused terror. Elphaba flings herself out of the kalidah's path as it comes rumbling up toward them.

Ojo suddenly goes running down out of the little camp, headed for the empty sands of the Pass, his glowing torch keeping a circle of golden light around him. The kalidah whips around faster than any animal of its size should be able to and chasing after Ojo. Elphaba follows quickly, despite Glinda's helpless screams to come back.

Elphaba clenches her fist around the dagger as she runs blindly through the darkness, following Ojo's light. The kalidah's ferocious snarls are ahead and twice she hears Ojo screaming.

At last Elphaba comes into view of Ojo as the wicked beast stalks over him, flexing its claws. The boy is holding up the torch, waving it to try to keep the kalidah away, but instead the creature only draws nearer, until –

"Ojo, throw me the torch!"

Ojo looks over his shoulder at Elphaba, and quickly back at the torch. Looking at Elphaba again, he shouts, "No! We need you!"

Elphaba stops dead in her tracks. "Who needs me?"

But before Ojo can answer the beast lets out a mighty roar and makes to heave itself on him; the ball of fire comes flinging out of Ojo's hands toward Elphaba, who miraculously catches it and begins waving it wildly in the air, shouting loudly for the kalidah's attention. The monster's attention is quickly won and he abandons Ojo, stalking threateningly toward Elphaba. Praying to Lurline that Ojo will understand what she is trying to do, Elphaba keeps her feet rooted to the spot, even as the kalidah comes nearer… fifty feet away… twenty feet… ten…

Just as the creature bares its vicious claws and begins its descent upon her, a blade comes slicing through its stomach. The kalidah suddenly freezes, eyes wide, mouth open, arms poised in the air, preparing to rip Elphaba apart. Then suddenly the dead animal collapses, letting Ojo's sword tear through it as it falls to the ground. Ojo stands, holding one of the long-bladed swords steadily in both hands, an expression of contented anger fixed upon his features, eyebrows furrowed downward and jaw set. His eyes raise to meet Elphaba's and she gazes at him, almost fearfully, though shows no emotion on her face. "Are you hurt?" she asks impassively.

"She'll make great food," the boy says in response, moving to sheath his blood-covered sword. "C'mon, we've got t' drag it back t' th' camp." He stoops, gathering the kalidah's hind legs and tail in his arms; Elphaba does not move. Glancing up, Ojo gives her a look of expectation. "Well?"

Elphaba steps cautiously over to the kalidah and without thinking grabs the monster's forepaws; she hisses as the beast's long claws scrape at her palms, but banishes the pain from her mind and hurriedly begins staggering backwards toward the camp, dragging the massive carcass.

Something suddenly burns on Elphaba's face and she takes a sharp intake of breath, dropping her grip on the kalidah and letting her hands fly to her cheek. Ojo looks at her quizzically: "Somefing wrong?"

Elphaba looks up at the sky as a second splash of pain hits her hand. "Rain."

The boy raises his eyebrows. "The rain pains you?"

Elphaba wrinkles her nose, suddenly noticing the vulnerability she has placed upon herself to this boy. "Never you mind." She stoops again, grabbing the corpse and dragging it back to the camp, working hard mentally to ignore the increasing stabs of pain as the rain begins to fall harder.

"Oh!" Glinda exclaims as Elphaba and Ojo manage to support the dead body of the kalidah up onto their rock encampment. "Isn't it so _unlucky_ that a kalidah should show up in the middle of the night?" Elphaba and Ojo only manage to grunt as they struggle to push the carcass and Glinda seems to acknowledge this as a sort of agreement. "I told you this place was bad, didn't I?" More grunting. "From the very moment I saw this place, I said it was unlucky, I said –"

"Glinda?"

"Yes?"

"Either help us or shut up." Elphaba and Ojo at last manage to push the kalidah up onto the stony flat where their camp is located and Ojo quickly swings himself up over the edge onto the rock. He offers a hand to Elphaba, who ignores it. "It is very _lucky_ that this kalidah came, Glinda." The blonde let out a dainty snort of doubt.

"We've run out of food," Glinda announces. "Isn't that _unlucky_?" She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head forward as though to make a point of her words.

"Roasted k'lidah 'as more protein than anyfing ya can think of," says Ojo, sitting cross-legged and working to make a fire again.

Elphaba smiles a bit at Glinda. "Isn't that _lucky_?" Glinda lets out an uppity "humph," but from the way she crosses her arms and avoids eye contact Elphaba can tell she feels defeated.

Nausea and dizziness seem to overtake Elphaba's senses as she lowers herself onto her pallet; the rain is falling heavy now and her hands feel as though they are on fire for all the wet they are receiving. She wearily drags her cot under a rocky hangover, out of the rain, and she watches as Glinda follows suit and Ojo stands to drag Heart's cot under Glinda's hangover for the blind woman has already fallen asleep. Ojo, however, seems content to return to sit in the impending rain, watching over the fire, wetter and wetter each moment

Elphaba looks at the kalidah and feels suddenly lightheaded; did she really just participate in the slaughtering of an animal? Granted, as far as Elphaba could tell it was not an Animal, because if it had, the Kalidah would surely have spoken. It would have yelled angry words at them as they attacked it; but then, what if this used to be an Animal, perhaps a victim of the Wizard's tests, of the tortures, of the diminishment of Animals.

Ojo has a golden fire flickering among the gathering twigs now despite the heaviness of the rain. Heart fell asleep sometime in the madness of the kalidah chase and Glinda looks determined to remain awake, probably to keep watch and make sure she knows what is going on before she is attacked again, but her eyelids are already drooping heavily. Ojo is the only one who does not look the least bit tired; he sits in a comfortable position, leaning back on a boulder with one hand behind his head and the other running absently up and down his ribs, gazing intently into the fire.

Closing her eyes, Elphaba listens to the patter of the rain, soothing and taunting all at the same time. _You killed what you stand for, Elphaba,_ the rain seems to whisper. _You killed an Animal, you killed an Animal, you killed an Animal…_

_I didn't know!_ Elphaba's mind screams. _I don't even know if it was a Kalidah!_

_And now you'll never know,_ patters the rain.

And suddenly the rain is no longer whispering taunts of a traitor to her cause but instead reminds her of the strange words spoken by Ojo: _We need you. No! We need you. We need you! No! We need you!_

And as the harsh sea of sleep overcomes, in that moment between sleep and awake when Elphaba used to find she would have the most ingenious thoughts of all, she sees the strange look of awe, terror, anxiety and _excitement_ on Ojo's face as he realized how contact with water pains her…

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_Author's Note: I don't usually do end notes for this, but I'd like to ask that everyone who reads this review... I'd like to do a kind of "booster chapter" with this - the majority of you can go back to your turtled lives of not reviewing after this, but I just ask that you press the button and just leave a "Good job, I liked this chapter" or something like that. It only takes a minute, and it's just this once that I'm going to beg. Thanks so much!_


	11. X

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: All right, and I'm back. I know, I said it wouldn't be another month, but… it was. But, I've seen the musical twice more since the last update, so I'm fresh! And, to compensate slightly, this is the longest chapter so far. It was hard to write because, although I knew what needed to happen next, I wasn't sure how to get there… but here it is!

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_

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

X.

Nanny has spilled her lemonade all down the front of her sundress, staining viciously, but she doesn't seem to notice, as she continues babbling to herself. Nessarose sways gently in one of the rocking chairs, sipping at her own glass of lemonade then closing her eyes to feel the faint breeze created by the delicate paper fan in her hand – she thinks briefly that the breeze is hardly worthy of being called such, for it does little to cool her down. It is more like a slight stirring of the hot summer air.

Nanny swings largely on her own rocking chair, spilling the rest of the yellowish drink onto the floor of the porch of the Thropp summer house. Boq eyes Nanny warily, fanning himself with his hands; his shirt clings to his torso from the sweat that runs down his chest and back, and his feet are bare. Milla wears a floppy sunhat with a yellow ribbon, pressed down firmly on her dark hair, shielding her from the sun, but not preventing the perspiration that drips slowly down her forehead and nose.

Nessarose rubs the enormous stomach before her; twelve long months she has carried this unknown baby, and the physicians have announced that the birth should occur any day. Twelve long months since that horrible night was taken out of her memory, extracted from her mind as though the entire world had skipped from the moment the gloved hands were stripping her to the moment of her awakening. Nessarose has decided that the rapist could not have been human; no human birth lasts so long. The lengthening of the gestation period must be attributed to the combination of human and Animal genetics; at least, that was Boq's explanation. But Boq was a Lurlinist, so Nessarose didn't expect much of him.

"It's hot," says Boq, stating the obvious. He pushes down his suspenders and his trousers droop considerably, but he seems to not notice as he untucks the shirt and begins to loosen the drawstrings at his throat.

A clattering noise comes from the road that passes the Thropp summer house; Nessarose's mind wanders to the Thropp Manor on the hill on the other side of Nest Hardings, and decides quickly that she would much rather be in the cool country cottage than the mansion.

A coach approaches and stops before the path that leads to the front porch of the house; it is a plain coach, black with green curtains, but the curtains have been drawn back in attempt to let the feeble breezes pass through the windows. A figure, a boy by the looks of it, steps swiftly out of the rental coach and steps up to pay the driver while three more figures step out of the coach; the first is recognizable immediately by the vast skirt of the dress: Lady Glinda; the second is mysteriously cloaked, despite the heat; the third is a dark-haired woman whom Nessarose does not recognize. Lady Glinda leads the way up the path, followed quickly by the two others. The boy sprints to catch up with them as the rental coach pulls away and Nessarose notices that the boy is carrying a small dog.

"Ah, Miss Nessarose, it is so good to see you," says Lady Glinda, stepping up onto the porch; the other three remain standing on the path. Nessarose and Lady Glinda kiss on each cheek before, with a squeal of delight, Glinda turns to Boq and Milla. "Oh, my, my, my!" she exclaims, rushing to hug Milla. "It has been too long, has it not, Miss Milla? And Boq! Why, Boq, you've grown since the university days, haven't you? Oh, I mean, no offense to your stature or anything, but you've certainly got quite a bit more muscle on your figure now, a farmer and all. My, my, my!"

There is something about the cloaked figure that irks Nessarose; she shifts uncomfortably in her seat, trying to make herself comfortable without disturbing the bulk of a stomach in front of her. The dog in the boy's hands lets out a yip of excitement. "Lady Glinda," Nessarose asks, interrupting the Gillikinese woman from her fawning over Nanny, "have you brought guests? I sent you to fetch Prince Fiyero, didn't I?"

Glinda is suddenly beaming, and she tosses her flaxen curls to show her delight. "Oh, Nessie, you did send me for Fiyero, you did, but I've found someone much better!" She gestures extravagantly to the hooded figure, who remains where she is. "Oh, go on, then!"

Two hands slowly emerge from the shadows of the cloak, and Nessarose gasps with surprise and disgust as the sunlight reveals green flesh. The hands reach up to pull back the hood of the cloak, revealing the repulsive face of one Elphaba Thropp.

Elphaba has the pinched look of one who has not been eating well; her cheekbones are more prominent than Nessie remembers, her nose more pointed, her eyes set on nothing in particular. Her blue-black curls, always her best feature, are tangled and wild, giving an aura of a strange, exotic beauty to her. "Hello, Nessie," she says, and her voice is sharper than Nessarose remembers, as though it cuts cleanly through the air to reach her ears.

"Elphaba," says Nessarose, and she finds herself choking on the name. Strange; she's never felt any special emotion toward her sister, except perhaps for a slight bit of revulsion. Elphaba was always in the neutral part of her mind for the most part, neither loved nor hated, neither shunned nor adored. That was until Elphaba had abandoned them all Shiz, disappeared in the City of Emeralds for years. Since then Nessarose had always felt a tug of unwant, of dislike, of hatred in her heart whenever her sister's name was mentioned. The dog lets out another yip, slicing the heavy tension in the air, and Nessarose speaks: "Well," she says, tossing her head, "are you going to introduce me to your _friends_?"

"Oh yes, yes, of course," Lady Glinda says, stepping forward, "this – come along, Ojo, come up here – this is Ojo the Unlucky. We found him –" The unknown woman clears her throat loudly, cutting Glinda off. "Oh, right, well, I suppose that's unimportant, isn't it? Ojo… go back down, get off the porch, you're dirtying it. We'll have to have you cleaned off before you go inside. The dog is Killyjoy, we'll keep him tied up outside; and this," Glinda shifts as Ojo steps off the porch, revealing the unknown woman, "is –"

"Singra."

Lady Glinda does a double-take towards the woman called Singra. "What did you say?"

"My name is Singra." She stumbles forward and gives a curtsy; Nessarose's eyes move from the stunned look on Lady Glinda's face, to the somewhat satisfied expression on Ojo's face, to the mild surprise on Elphaba's face. "May I ask of your name?" Singra says, tilting her face up towards Nessarose; it is now that Nessarose notices the glazed look of Miss Singra's eyes – a blind woman.

"I am Miss Nessarose," she says, struggling to stand; Milla steps over quickly to help her, while Lady Glinda takes a half-step away. "I am the Eminent Thropp; perhaps you've heard of me?"

"Yes," she says, "you're Elphaba's sister, the one who –"

"Are you due yet?" Lady Glinda asks, cutting off Miss Singra as Milla helps Nessarose back into her seat.

"I've been due," says Nessarose, "for the last three months."

"What?" Ojo asks. "How can you be three months overdue?"

"It's not human," Nessarose says confidently. Ojo's jaw drops, Lady Glinda looks taken aback, and even Nanny stops rocking.

"You had sex with a tree?" gasps Nanny, mortified.

Nessarose raises her head high and swallows. "I did not have sex with a _tree,_ Nanny… I believe I was raped by an Animal." Nessarose delicately raises a perfect eyebrow as she sees Elphaba's fists clench and the Singra woman seems to stiffen as well, standing up straighter, furrowing her brow, her lips thinning into a straight line. "Ah, sister, I see you still have you're obscure affection for Animal… a political devotion that, no doubt, has gotten you into a spot of trouble with the Wizard?"

"No need to try to formalize your speech for me, Nessie."

"Don't you call me that," Nessarose says, her voice threateningly low. "You betrayed me – you betrayed all of us, left me and Father and Shell behind. Oh, I'm sure you thought that Glinda and Boq would be fine once you left, they would get along fine without you, but did you think for an instant how you might affect _me_?"

"I didn't think you'd notice," says Elphaba coldly.

Nessarose closes her eyes lightly, feeling the upper and lower lashes stick together. When she opens her eyes again, she cranes her neck in Nanny's direction. "Nanny, I want to go inside."

"Cluck, cluck, cluck, it's hot inside, girly, you don't want to go in there." Nanny rests her head on the back of her chair and begins rocking and again.

"Nanny!" snaps Nessarose. "I want to go inside," she says, her voice calm again, and she notices a chill gently shaking Lady Glinda's shoulders. Nanny, still clucking her tongue, hobbles her ancient way over to Nessarose and Milla ducks over to assist her into helping Nessarose stand.

Behind her, Nessarose hears Boq tell Lady Glinda that he'll fetch a bucket of water to help wash Ojo off before entering the house.

:---:

Elphaba watches as Nessarose, Milla, and Nanny retreat into the summer house and she begins working on the fastenings to her cloak as Boq hurries away to fetch a bucket of water. Ojo drops to sit cross-legged on the grass and begins studying his hands. On the porch, Glinda collapses into the rocking chair that Nanny had been sitting in and Killyjoy bounds his way up the porch steps and onto Glinda's lap; she has become so accustomed to the dog's liking for her that she does little to stop him.

"She seems," Heart – or is it Singra? – searches for the right word, "_pleasant._"

"Pleasant?" Elphaba scoffs. "Nessie has always been far from pleasant, she's never done anything to help the Animals. She's only concerned about herself and the Unnamed God, and maybe a little bit for Father. She's a self-centered, arrogant bi–"

"Oh, Elphie, stop it," Glinda says, stooping to pick up the paper fan Nessarose had dropped and beginning to wave it about her face. "You've been every bit as self-centered as Nessie has been, and you know it."

Elphaba looks at Glinda with a slight expression of shock and hurt on her face. "Oh, come off it, Elphie, stop fooling yourself. Running away to the Emerald City? That wasn't exactly an action that benefited those close to you, now did it?"

"It benefited Doctor Dillamond's cause, for the Animals!" Elphaba argued. "Maybe not immediately, but it will in the end!"

"Doctor Dillamond? Dillamond died for his cause, he died for what he believed in. What have you done? Run away from those who were trying to help you? Boq and Crope and Tibbett, they were all involved in the Animal studies with you, yet you took _me_ to the Emerald City to see the Wizard. You wasted their time, didn't you, you left them in the dust just when you were starting to get somewhere."

"I didn't leave Tibbett behind," says Elphaba firmly.

"Because Tibbett was dead!" Glinda is standing now and has dropped the fan, to be chewed by the dog that is now sitting on the floor of the porch. "You're trying to justify your actions, Elphaba, but you can't!"

Boq has returned with the bucket of water and, without a word, has brought Ojo to his feet, stripped him to the waist, and has begun scrubbing him. Singra is stumbling over to them, but is still clearly listening to the argument between Glinda and Elphaba.

"What about you, Glinda?" says Elphaba. "What's your cause? You've never been brave enough to take a stand for something that you thought was being twisted around the other way. I know that something deep down inside you knows what a treacherous man the Wizard is, yet you don't do anything about it. You take _his_ side in the war, you defend the Wizard's anti-Animal campaigns. _I,_ on the other hand, _have_ been doing something, whether you know about it or not. I helped start the war, I was sent to the Vinkus in search for allies, I killed Madame Morrible!"

"And what was your consequence for that, Elphie?" Glinda says, her voice low and calm in a way that reminds Elphaba eerily of Nessarose. "Hmm? What was the payment you got for the Morrible assassination?" Glinda pauses for dramatic effect and tosses her hair. "Fiyero was killed because of you, wasn't he? Fiyero, who never did anything wrong, who always stayed within the limits he knew were set, just like I did. Are you going to trigger something else that has someone else you love killed? Nessie, maybe, or Heart or Singra or whatever your name is? Or me, maybe?"

A scream from the inside of the house interrupts the argument and Elphaba and Glinda both race for the door; Glinda, on the porch, reaches it first, and reaches down to gather her enormous skirts together so she can run through the house.

"Elphaba! Glinda! Someone!" screams a voice upstairs, and Elphaba charges for the staircase, shoving Glinda and her voluminous skirts out of the way. Elphaba charges up the stairs, lifting her own skirt out of the way.

Milla is standing in Nessarose's bedroom door: "I've given birth to seven children, but I've never been on the other side of a birth!" she exclaims, and Elphaba quickly pushes Milla into the room as Glinda comes whirling up the steps.

Nanny sits in a corner of the bedroom, clapping her hands gleefully, saying: "The tree-human is about to be born!"

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Please review! 


	12. XI

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: Hey, look, I promised it wouldn't be another month, and it wasn't! This is, again, the longest chapter so far, although I have no idea if the coming chapters will be longer than this. I'm really excited for the rest of this fic, I've been excited for the whole of this fic, actually, but anyway enough of my babbling, go read the fic.

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XI.

Elphaba sits quietly, staring at the large rectangular pool; in the center floats a single candle, white wick and lit with a small flame, contrasting artistically with the black water. Around the candle twenty-one white roses, cut from the garden bushes that surround the open area, drift about the surface of the water. One of Boq's three children comes running up the pool with a large rock held with his two chubby, sticky hands. The child heaves the stone into the water, and giggles gleefully; the splash catches the attention of several people, especially as some of the roses nearly sink, and Milla comes rushing over to quietly scold the child and sit him back down on the ground with his brother and sister.

Glinda walks over to Elphaba, her hand hooked in the crook of the arm of a tall man caped in black. Elphaba studies Glinda for a moment; a sad smile is on her face, and her head is angled slightly as she gazes at Elphaba, her pale curls tumbling to one side. She wears no headdress, as is expected at a funeral, but rudely wears no black either. The wide skirt is divided into several panels, each panel made of a different pastel-colored fabric, and a sort of history of Oz seems to be embroidered, with each panel telling another part of the story. Elphaba doesn't pay too close attention to the details, other than to note the way Glinda's skirt's history followed the Unionist beliefs in the Unnamed God, and especially noticing the last panel, which involved a lot of green thread forming a City skyline and a long yellow road.

"Elphie," says Glinda, and Elphaba doesn't move her eyes from the candle on the water. "Elphaba." Elphaba blinks to show she is listening, but otherwise does not move. "Elphie, this is my hubby, Sir Chuffrey."

"How do you do," says Sir Chuffrey, extending his arm. Elphaba follows the arm up to meet a face with a very straight nose and brown eyes that are set just slightly too close together. His hair is a shocking white and his face is heavily layered with wrinkles. His accent is decidedly Gillikinese, very upper class, perhaps from the Pertha Hills like Glinda herself. Elphaba can easily see from the way the man is dressed that Glinda married for money. He has a polite, if phony, smile, and Elphaba figures that Glinda warned him of the greenery of her skin before his arrival.

Chuffrey has dropped his arm for Elphaba's lack of accepting it, and Glinda's expression has changed into a slight scowl in her direction.

Elphaba nods towards the pool. "What's that about?"

Glinda glances over her shoulder, and then giggles slightly. "The candle is a representation of the Unnamed God, a sort of respect towards him. Each rose represents a year of life spent on Earth by the one who has passed on."

"Just say dead," says Elphaba. "Nessie's death doesn't deserve to be beat around the bush about."

"Elphaba, that's a wicked thing to say!" snaps Glinda, her voice a near whisper; Chuffrey's white eyebrows have arched, but Elphaba finds that she does not care.

"And what's that," Elphaba asks, gesturing towards a vase of water that holds only a small candle floating in it.

"That's the altar for the baby; it hadn't lived a year, so there is no need for roses." Elphaba nods curtly at Glinda's words.

"It seems more like a Lurlinist type of set up," comments Elphaba. "It has a more surreal feeling to it, much like Lurlinism… Unionism always seems to be very firm and down-to-earth, and as set into factual events as possible. Lurlinism just seems to float around, be what you want it to be, more of a 'you-decide-for-yourself-what-is-real-and-what-is-not' type of religion."

A moment of silence before Glinda speaks again: "Elphie, I thought your father was a priest?" she asks.

"He was," says Elphaba shortly, staring again at the water.

"Then you believe in the Unnamed God?"

"No." Elphaba shifts a bit in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable under the stare of Glinda and Chuffrey.

"Then what do you believe in?" asks Glinda, and her eyes go wide with horror: "Surely you aren't a Lurlinist?"

"No," says Elphaba slowly.

"Then what do you believe in?" repeats Glinda. "What's your – your candle on the water?" Elphaba's eyes flicker up to look at Glinda, and the light-haired woman has a smug look on her face, as though delighted with herself for using such a brilliantly-worded metaphor.

Elphaba responds without thinking: "Kumbricia."

Glinda clicks her tongue, and her eyes are wide again and her perfectly-plucked eyebrows arched high; she leads Chuffrey away from Elphaba, towards Boq and Milla. Elphaba watches them with disinterest, and raises her eyebrow at the way Glinda's voice has suddenly raised an octave. Milla wrings out her hands and her eyes dart about, clearly nervous about Glinda's rude volume at a funeral, and Boq's face has gone red as he watches the way Glinda snakes her arm around old Chuffrey's.

Elphaba pulls her attention from Glinda and Boq and instead glances across the pool at the long casket Nessarose's body lies in, and the smaller one that holds the baby. Standing, dressed in a combination of maroon and black, is a youth with sleek brown hair that reminds her of Melena's, combed neatly to the side. He turns and Nessarose sees Frexspar's green eyes looking back at her, and she knows suddenly who this strange boy is: Shell.

Elphaba stands and makes her way around the pool to the caskets, even as Shell hurries away at the sight of his green sister. Nessarose lies in her coffin almost as perfectly as if she were asleep. Her eyes are closed gently, her thick lashes laying on her upper cheeks lightly, as though if Elphaba blew gently over her eyes Nessarose would open them and scowl at her. Her forehead is relaxed, freed of the furrowing that seemed to Elphaba to have been etched into her brow from the moment she arrived. A ceremonial blanket, white and gold silk embroidered with all sorts of gaudy designs, has been wrapped tightly about Nessa, hiding her faulty feature of armlessness. Only her lips seem to have any tension; painted cherry-red, Nessarose's lips look slightly puckered, as though preparing to kiss someone. Elphaba glances over her shoulders quickly and briefly touches Nessie's lips with her own.

Noticing Elphaba by the caskets, Milla takes the opportunity to slip away from Glinda and their husbands; Boq's face has now changed from red to white as Glinda brags about Sir Chuffrey's achievements.

"Kneel," Milla whispers to Elphaba, stooping beside her to kneel on the silken pillows lying on the ground. Elphaba kneels as instructed. "Pray."

Awkwardly, Elphaba closes her eyes, lowers her head, and folds her hands, but no prayer comes to mind. She tries to focus on Nessie's death, on the baby's death, on the Unnamed God, on anything, but only a blackened emptiness comes to mind.

"You're not praying," Milla whispers.

"How do you know that?" asks Elphaba haughtily.

"I'm not praying, either," she says; Elphaba peeks through slitted eyes and sees that Milla is still lowered in the praying position and she, following suit, remains in the pose as well.

"Aren't you and Boq Lurlinist?" asks Elphaba.

"Yes; most Munchkinlanders are, though. Unionism has all but stopped existing in Munchkinland, which is why so many people look uncomfortable." Elphaba chances another glance towards Milla, and sees she has dropped her hands and raised her head, and is now gazing sadly at Nessarose's body. "I was to be the baby's godmother. Did you know that?"

"No," Elphaba says gracelessly.

"I was. Boq was to be his godfather, also. I want to talk to you about him," Milla says, and when Elphaba gives her an inquiring look: "Boq." She folds her hands again, resting them on Nessarose's coffin. "Elphaba, I know we have never been the closest of friends. I utterly disliked you at school and I daresay you felt the same feelings of revulsion towards me. But being married to Boq, and carrying three of his children already – a set of twins among them – I've come to realize the error of my schoolgirl ways. I do hope you'll forgive me."

"What is it you want to talk about, Milla?"

Milla swallows, and her gaze drops. "Boq doesn't love me. I don't know if I even love him, but I do care about him. He cares about me too, in a friendship sort of way, but I really and truly care about him. My point is… Elphaba, I know you're going to the Emerald City to try and end this war once and for all. There's no point in trying to deny it, we all know it. And, well, Boq and I have talked about it and he has decided that when you leave, he's going with you and I just want to ask that you make sure he's all right… Just watch over him and make sure he doesn't do anything too stupid." Her eyes flicker in the direction of Glinda, who is laughing shrilly. "I know it seems so out of my character to confront you like this, but… for my sake, and for the children's… please?"

Elphaba is silent for a moment, thinking again about nothing in particular, before she nods solemnly. "I won't let anything happen to him as long as I can help it," she promises, and Milla looks content.

"Thank you," she says. She stands to go look at the little half-human baby and Elphaba follows.

The child looks human enough, except for raised and pointed ears, and a set of razor-sharp teeth. The entire little body is covered in a layer of fine, silky hairs, white on the stomach and face and orange nearly everywhere else, save a long black stripe running down the baby's back. The baby was dead before it came out of Nessarose's womb, and the father was undoubtedly a Tiger. No one spoke what they were thinking when they realized this, but they were all thinking the same thing – Tibbett and the Philosophy Club.

A bell rings in the chapel and a small clan of Munchkinlander youths clad in black capes comes hurrying over; six lift Nessarose's casket and the seventh lifts the baby in his own miniature casket. They carry the coffins unceremoniously towards the little building and the small throng of people begins to file out of the chapel's gardens and into the chapel itself. Milla hurries to join Boq and the children, and Elphaba stands to follow the throng as well. Singra has grabbed onto Chuffrey's cloak and he sniffs his disapproval, but does nothing to stop her. Elphaba makes her way over to the blind woman, and, taking her hand without a word, leads her to the small church.

Elphaba and Singra slide into a pew in the back, and Ojo slips in next to Singra as well, and as Elphaba glances around the church, something in the back of her mind flashes – this is the church where her father used to teach, so many, many years ago…

At the front of the church, an elderly man clad in black stands up, and Elphaba recognizes him as one of the priests who would teach when her father was out on a mission's trip to Quadling Country, or the Vinkus, or at a meeting of religious leaders in the Emerald City. His raises his hands for silence, but the crowd has not been talking and he lowers them again quickly.

"Friends and family," he says, his old voice cracking. "We are gathered here today not to mourn the loss of a great ruler, but to celebrate the passing of a powerful woman to a better place. Nessarose Thropp, daughter of the late Melena Thropp and Brother Frexspar, was a highly religious woman, devoted sister, loving daughter, and perhaps one of the most cherished Eminents Munchkinland has seen in many years." Elphaba scoffs inwardly at the lies laced into the old preacher's words – devoted sister? Cherished ruler?

"Nessarose was an independent woman, and the daughter of an independent woman. Melena Thropp was so independent, in fact, that she refused the Eminence to have a family." Elphaba scoffs again. Melena denied the Eminence because she was frightened of the responsibility, and didn't love her family at all.

"Brother Frexspar, Nessarose's father, is –"

"– a sick joke that deserves to die," slurs a voice behind Elphaba. She turns sharply to see Frexspar, his eyes rolling about in his head and drool rolling down his chin. "I'm not Nessie's father!" he cries, drunk and standing up, and the gathered mourners turn their heads to each other and whisper loudly. "Anyone who knows anything knows that Nessie's not my daughter. You idiots! Nessie's father was Turtle Heart!" – Singra lets out a loud gasp – more whispers, even louder now. "I ain't no father of no Nessie – the man you should be honoring is the Quadling, Turtle Heart! I love him, he was my lover! He had sex with my wife and –"

The room is full-out buzzing with excitement with this news, drowning out Frexspar's words, and Elphaba can see how delighted the truly religious Lurlinists are – an ex-priest of Unionism showing up drunk at his own daughter's funeral and then announcing his love for another man, what a truly exciting strike against the Unionist religion.

"'Course, Elphaba ain't my daughter either," he says over the crowd's conversations, though no one hears him, "and sometimes, I wonder if Shell is too!"

"Frex, shut up," Elphaba says, turning and pushing on Frexspar's shoulders to get him to sit back down in his pew.

"Silence!" the old priest at the front of the chapel is shouting. "Silence! We are hear to honor the Eminent, not to criticize her family! Silence!"

After the funeral, Elphaba cranes her neck around, searching for Shell, even as Singra tugs at her sleeve. She sees him with Frexspar, the older man's arm slung around the boy's shoulder and calls out for him. "Shell!" He looks sharply over his shoulder and, upon seeing who has called him, his face twists into an expression of revulsion and hurt, and he turns away again quickly to help their drunken father limp home.

"Elphaba," Singra begs, tugging on her sleeve, "I've something to tell you."

"Wait," Elphaba says, trying feebly to make her way through the crowd, but in vain; Glinda is ahead of her with her giant skirt, and she has stopped the entire crowd trying to get through the doorway without wrinkling the fabric. Shell and Frexspar are already out of earshot and will soon be gone. She lets out a sigh and collapses into a pew; she doesn't even know what she wanted to say to Shell, why she wanted to talk to him, she just knew that she did.

"Elphaba," says Singra, sinking into the pew beside her, "Nessarose's father is Turtle Heart?"

"Yes," snaps Elphaba sharply as Ojo sits next to Singra, "I told you that; that's what my father said."

"Elphaba," the blind woman says slowly, "I need to speak with your father."

Elphaba and Singra gradually make their way outside to where there is a long table standing where the coffins stood not an hour ago. It is creaking with the weight of the refreshments, but by the look of it, though, it could be an entire feast laid out for the funeral guests. Glinda and Chuffrey have already attacked the refreshments, but Shell, Milla, and Nanny are gathered around Frexspar, forcing him to swallow some kind of milky-white liquid; his face goes sour, and he coughs dramatically. He sits upright and Milla wipes his mouth with a handkerchief. His eyes roll back into his head, but when they come forward again he is sober.

"An old remedy that hardly anyone uses anymore," babbles Nanny. "I used it more than once on my brothers when they were drunk."

"Father," says Elphaba, hurrying over and kneeling at her father's side. "This is Heart – I mean, Singra. She needs to ask you something."

Ojo gives Singra a helpful push, and she steps cautiously towards Frexspar. "Did you say that Nessarose's father was a man named Turtle Heart?"

Frexspar looks slightly confused, as though he does not remember his actions while he was drunk, but answers, "Yes."

Tears are suddenly brimming in Singra's unseeing eyes as she speaks: "_My_ father's name was Turtle Heart."

And without another word, Frexspar is crying and Singra is crying and Nanny is crying and babbling and Frexspar has outstretched his arms and folded Singra into a tight hug. Nanny wraps her arms around both of them and sways lovingly, and they stand there in a tight knot of weeping.

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_Please review!_


	13. XII

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: I think this would have to be my least favorite of all the chapters so far… I don't think it fits in with the rest of the story, but I kind of need to get to Elphaba actually being the Eminent Thropp. To clarify to anyone who may be confused, Heart is in fact Singra. Remember how the Resistance used code names? Elphaba was Fae, Viridis was Ginger, and so on… well, Heart was Singra's code name, as taken from her true father's name, Turtle Heart. Ta da! Oh, and to _**MarkysGirl**_, I noticed as soon as I published the last chapter that I made no mention of Nessarose's shoes, though they are not relevant to the plot at all because the shoes aren't magical – Glinda didn't enchant them until later on in the novel. But I've made up for the lack of shoes with this chapter.

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XII.

"Well, it's not really a coronation, exactly," Glinda had said in explanation, "it's more just like a… a 'ceremony-that-makes-you-an-Eminent.' A coronation would be if you were as queen or something, which you certainly are not, but they call the ceremony a coronation anyway because 'ceremony-that-makes-you-an-Eminent' just doesn't sound very formal, now does it? But the ceremony goes along in the same way as a coronation would… You'll be anointed with holy oil and they'll ratify you and then they'll crown you – I guess it's not actually a crowning, is it? Well, they'll do something similar to crowning and there's some bit about a dove, I'm not sure how that works really. You don't even have to speak, just smile and look nice."

Elphaba had been practically stripped from her black dress by the servant girls, who all looked thoroughly disgusted as they did so. She managed to escape the bathing, however, and found a bottle of perfumed oil that she quickly began rubbing over her skin. The girls were convinced by the smell, but Elphaba had the terrible feeling of being Glinda as she walked about smelling like roses. She had been forced into a high-collared gown of white silk, severely embroidering and glittering with beads. Her hair was pulled up high and a ceremonial cloak of gold silk was draped over her shoulders, clasped at her throat with an arrangement of emeralds and diamonds.

Now, as Elphaba looks in the mirror, she begins to feel sick; Glinda's body would not have looked out of place in such an extravagant outfit, nor Nessarose's, but the excessive use of white and gold silk makes Elphaba's skin look greener than ever. Even as Glinda enters the room Elphaba can see the slight shock on her face through the reflection in the mirror.

"Oh, Elphie!" gasps Glinda in a false tone of awe. "You look simply magnificent!"

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'nauseating,'" says Elphaba, turning around to face Glinda.

"Elphie, listen, I… I just wanted to apologize for what I said, that day, when we had the fight. It was wrong of me – no, don't speak, let me talk. It was wrong of me to bring such touchy subjects up, especially with you. You _have_ done good deeds, better than I've done, and you are so much braver than I am. I could never have fought for what I believe in if it wasn't socially accepted, not the way you did at least. Not publicly, nor privately. You can speak now."

"I'm not sure what to say –"

"Then don't say anything, because I've got more!" says Glinda, and she suddenly looks very excited. "I've been thinking and I've decided that when you go back to the Emerald City, I'm going with you."

Elphaba stares at Glinda blankly. "Glinda, a battlefield is no place for an aristocratic –"

"I've made up my mind," says Glinda, crossing her arms. "I'm going with you."

"In that getup?" asks Elphaba, gesturing to Glinda's vast skirt.

"Elphie," says Glinda, raising her eyebrows, her lips thinning, "don't be silly."

A page comes hurrying into the room. "Madame Elphaba, your presence is requested," he says. Glinda wishes her good luck and kisses her cheek before hurrying out of the room to find Boq and Milla to sit with in the chapel. The boy bows Elphaba out of the room, closes the door behind, and stoops to pick up the train of the golden cloak to carry as Elphaba walks down the middle aisle of the chapel.

The chapel is a long, narrow room fashioned from dark mahogany wood. The walls on either side were decorated with elaborate windows of stained glass, telling the stories of the Unnamed God and the Unionist religion. A solid blood-red window represented something that Elphaba did not recognize, but she noticed the way the light from that particular window fell upon Glinda, illuminating her flaxen locks with a red glow. Glinda is sitting next to a red-faced Boq and Milla, looking relieved to have her children home with Nanny. Glinda waves emphatically at her and the corners of Elphaba's mouth twitch, but she vows to remain solemn as she makes her way to the front of the chapel.

"Kneel," says the old priest, and Elphaba does so. The page drops the cloak hastily and steps over to fetch a small green bottle, which is handed to the old priest and slowly emptied in circles on Elphaba's head. The priest begins uttering words in a language Elphaba does not understand and Elphaba coughs violently from the awful stench from the holy oil.

"Stand," the priest commands and Elphaba obeys. "Madame Elphaba is the descendent of a long line of women controlling the role of Eminent Thropp," says the priest, addressing the audience. He now turns again to Elphaba. "Madame Nessarose, our late Eminent, asked that you be presented with these should she pass." The page stumbled up the steps, carrying a small, plain-looking, leather chest. Standing beside the priest he quickly unlocked the chest and the priest reaches into the box. A soft gasp from the viewers echoes around the room as the priest pulled out a pair of shoes glittering with tiny glass beads – the shoes Frexspar sent to Nessarose as a gift. The priest drops the shoes back into the box and reaches down to pull out an ancient-looking book, purple pages bound with decaying leather. Elphaba recognizes it at once as what it is – a Grimmerie – but knows from the priest and the audience's lack of reaction that no one else recognizes the magical encyclopedia of things numinous. The priest places the cryptic book back in the chest, which the page quickly carries away.

The boy is quickly replaced with a second page, this one a girl with brown hair tied in a braid, carrying in her slender hands a long silver sword encrusted with emeralds. The priest takes it, bending forward in a bow towards the page, who returns it. The priest lifts the sword high, straight in the air. Muttering something in an early language, he touches each of Elphaba's shoulders with the sword and presents it to her. "May the Unnamed God always be with you," he says, and Elphaba hears the Lurlinists whisper their disapproval. Another page runs up suddenly and releases a dove that flies through the chapel, circling the ceiling like a vulture. "May I present to you, our new Eminent Thropp, Madame Elphaba!"

The crowd applauds, and Glinda and Boq stand up, though they are alone in doing so. Elphaba begins walking back up the aisle and watches keenly as a gooey white liquid drops from the dove onto Glinda's hair and shoulder and as she screams in utter disgust.

:---:

"Who set you on fire?"

"Glinda, you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk!" says Glinda, taking a gulp from her glass of wine.

"You're drunk."

"Damn it, Elphaba, I'm not drunk!" insists Glinda.

"You're drunk. The sober Glinda never swears. Come on, let's get you out of here before you do something really stupid." Elphaba takes the glass from Glinda's hand and places it on a table; she calls to Nanny, who comes hobbling over with Singra.

Singra, Nanny, and Elphaba help Glinda into a back parlor off of the ball room. Glinda topples herself onto a sofa, her skirt taking up the room on either side of her. Nanny has already begun digging in her bags for the herbs she will need to conjure up the remedy for drunkenness she used on Frexspar. A line of drool runs down Glinda's chin.

Elphaba looks suddenly at Singra: "I need to talk to you."

Singra looks alarmed. "If this is about your father, Elphaba, I –"

"No, it's not that… well, it sort of is," she says. "Heart, I'm leaving for the Emerald City soon, and someone needs to stay here and take care of Nanny and Father and I was wondering –"

"I'm going with you," says Singra firmly.

"Heart –"

"_Fae_ –"

"_Singra_, please don't do this. You and my father, you're getting along so well, please just stay here with him!"

"Milla can take care of them," she says, feeling around Glinda's face and, upon finding her nose, pinching it while Nanny pours the drink down her throat. "Nanny's an independent woman, aren't you, Nanny? She can take care of Frexspar by herself if something should call Milla away. Besides, Shell can stay with them."

"Have you talked to Shell?" asks Elphaba hopefully.

"A little," says Singra, pushing Glinda to sit upwards as she coughs violently. "Mostly small talk – how are you? Lovely weather today, isn't it? Lovely cloak you've got there!"

Glinda's eyes suddenly roll back in her head, and when she's looking at them again, she has returned to her clear-headed self: "Elphaba, what on earth are you wearing?" Elphaba looks down at her velvet gown, but ultimately decides to ignore Glinda's comment.

"Listen, Heart – _Singra, _I don't want you going to the City, it's too dangerous for a blind woman to be in the middle of the war."

Singra is suddenly standing very erect, her back rod-straight. "Too dangerous for a blind woman?" she repeats. "I am going to the City with you, and that is the end of it." She storms out of the room, red-and-white-striped silk fanning out behind her.

"So, is Singra joining us then?" asks Glinda, propping herself up with her elbows. "That will make a jolly foursome, won't it? You, me, Boq, and Singra!"

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_Please review!_


	14. XIII

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: So… Yeah. Don't know what to say much except for here is Chapter the Thirteenth… I can't believe I'm so far in! I never thought this story would get this far… but I'm definitely going to finish… according to my outline there are 5 chapters and an epilogue left… We're coming up to the climax in the Emerald City… can anyone tell how excited I am? I really am! OK, go read._

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XIII.

"How do you think the Munchkinlanders will fair without an Eminent?" queries Glinda inattentively.

"They have been under the sovereignty of Nessarose for the last few years… I scarcely think they will notice my absence." Elphaba reaches into the bag slung over her shoulder, rummaging for a bit of bread.

An extensive ribbon of yellow stretches out before and behind the small, indomitable group of travelers. Each yellow brick is crammed in tightly next to its brothers and framing the lengthy golden highway are rolling fields of green grass. War is raging in the City, but out in the country it seems impossible to tell.

Elphaba glances at the people ambling along beside her and decides quickly that they would look very much like a ragtag troop if the onlooker did not know who they each were and what their connections were with each other.

The infamous Glinda the Good in her immense berry bush gown, a plump bag in each hand, promenading along with her honey-colored curls bouncing gaily; an undersized Munchkinlander farmer with a small suitcase, a straw hat perched on his head and dressed minimally in a plaid shirt and trousers, hiking steadily to stay with the group because of his short limbs; a bony teenager with scraggly hair, ambling carelessly along beside his companions, clad in garments tattered and dirty and hands free of baggage – Glinda had insisted that Ojo leave Killyjoy behind, to her own relief and Elphaba's; a blind woman stumbling over her own scarlet scarf, empty-handed as far as her own traveling bags went, but hauling a case for Glinda; and the blind woman's half-sister, a woman with jaded skin clothed all in black with a bizarre pointed hat on her jet-black mane, a bag hanging over her shoulder, striding along with the others and eyeing them every once in a while as though she is the teacher and they are the juvenile students, to be watched over as a shepherd watches his sheep.

"Oh, poppies!" squeals Glinda, running up to a cluster of scarlet blooms. "They're so beautiful, aren't they? They'll make for a nice change from the yellow road and green grass."

"Better than agreen road and purple grass," remarks Ojo, shrugging. Glinda makes a fuss of stuffing several poppies in Singra's braid.

"They look lovely," Glinda assures her.

Boq returns to chatting to Ojo about crops as Ojo apathetically picks at his fingernails, nodding vaguely, evidently uninterested in what the farmer is saying. Singra has walked in silence since they left Nest Hardings and Glinda is struggling with her heavy bags, though no one makes a move to help her.

They had departed from Nest Hardings two days after Elphaba's coronation as Eminent. Milla had agreed to stay with and watch over Nanny and Frexspar, and Elphaba had left Milla and Shell in joint substitution as Eminent in her absence, should any major tribulations transpire. She still has yet to talk to Shell, for she had Singra speak with him about taking charge as Eminent while Elphaba is in the City of Emeralds. He consented without too much persuasion, according to Singra's testimony.

They had walked from Nest Hardings for nearly a full day. A night had been spent at Boq's farmhouse before resuming their trip along the road paved with yellow brick. It is nearly noon now and Glinda will be pleading starvation soon.

"Singra," says Elphaba suddenly, capturing attention from Glinda, Boq, and Ojo, "I want to know what is going on."

Singra's brow furrows. "What's going on?"

"You, and my father, and Turtle Heart." Singra lets a sigh emerge, but nods. Boq is not interested in this subject matter and returns to babbling to Ojo about the positive results in growing pumpkins and carrots in the same field. Glinda, however, is undoubtedly attracted to a topic such as this and, though she turns her eyes back to the road before her, Elphaba senses Glinda's ears are perked in their direction, incessantly eavesdropping on their conversation. The scarlet poppies appear in greater clusters on the side of the road as they walk farther and every once in a while a poppy will appear, sticking out between bricks in the center of the road.

"All right," says Elphaba, deciding to disregard Glinda. "Tell me."

"Well, from what I have gathered, Turtle Heart was not exactly a man of high values. But it's best to start at the beginning…

"My mother was born, raised, and married in the City. Her husband, a man I have never known, moved them to the Quadling mines because he wanted rubies. Turtle Heart was a glassblower in the village where my mother and her husband were staying in Quadling Country. They met one way or another, and before long my mother was having an affair with Turtle Heart behind her husband's back. My mother eventually became impregnated with Turtle Heart's child – me – and when her husband found out, he cast her aside, treated her harshly, and eventually left her. Turtle Heart and my mother moved to the City to have me and raise me… the only thing I remember about him was a sort of glass ball he gave me. I didn't know what it was or what it was for, because I could not see it, and I presently shattered it. Not on purpose, granted, but it was certainly broken. It must have been some sort of test or something to see if I was right, because he vanished in the night after I broke the orb. I was barely two and my mother was on the verge of committing suicide for losing both of the men she loved. She did eventually kill herself, found dead in the fountain outside the Emerald Palace, overdosed on drugs and drowned.

"That is my entire involvement in this story, and here is where the puzzle pieces of my story and your father's start coming into play. We figure he left the City and headed east, towards Munchkinland, where he came upon the Thropp household. You had just been born and, according to your father, he also gave _you_ a glass orb… so I'm starting to wonder if those glass spheres are more than they appear – but anyway, he showed up and I presume had affairs with both your mother and your father. 'He was hers by day, mine by night,' in the words of your father."

"Your mother was in time pregnant again, now with Turtle Heart's child – Nessarose. Turtle Heart died eventually. But who knows what could have happened with Turtle Heart before he met my mother. Maybe he has more children, maybe they are all disabled and that could be a clue to who we are. But it is just strange how everything seems to have gone full circle… your family moved to the Quadling Country at some point, and then eventually you and I met in the Resistance, and now here we are fighting for Animal rights. Half-sisters all this time and ignorant to it."

"I'm hungry," announces Glinda.

Elphaba is speechless at Singra's presentation – such an ironic ring of events, almost as though designed to result in these happenings.

"Is the circle complete though?" thinks Elphaba aloud and Glinda casts a strange look in her direction.

Boq seems to have finished torturing Ojo with farming tips and the entire group falls into an awkward silence.

Before long, however, Elphaba has turned to look at Singra. "Singra, I owe you an apology."

"What do you mean?"

"At the Vinkus… when we first arrived there, last winter. I behaved wickedly, it was cruel of me… it's just… Fiyero's wife was there, hanging there, dead, and I never got to ask for her forgiveness…"

"Oh, of course," says Singra. "It's fine." Elphaba can tell that Singra has not an idea of what she means, but at the same time hardly cares. She has apologized, and right now she feels as though that's all that matters.

The poppies have taken over some time back, and the road is completely obscured by the thick blanket of crimson flora. Either way Elphaba looks, it seems she sees only the fields of scarlet blossoms, like an ocean of blood. The spicy scent of the flowers has overtaken Elphaba's nostrils, as though Glinda has set a cloud of perfume about her, and she finds herself coughing at the heavy aroma.

"I think we're getting close to a nap break," says Glinda, yawning.

"We are not stopping," says Elphaba. "It will only take us longer."

"No, Elphaba, I think Glinda's right," says Boq, sitting down among the poppies, "a bit of a rest doesn't sound like a bad idea." Glinda plops herself down in the flowers beside Boq, and they quickly fall asleep, nestling into each others arms. Singra is stretching in a yawn now and has fallen to her knees. Ojo seems to be unfazed by any sleepiness and Elphaba herself does not feel tired either.

"Get up," says Elphaba stubbornly, but Glinda and Boq are fast asleep and Singra is nodding off now as well.

"It's th' poppies," says Ojo, an expression of what could be boredom upon his face. "When there's a lot o' poppies togevver th' smell is so po'erful tha' anyone who breaves it falls 'sleep, and iv they isn't carried away from the poppies, they's sleeps on and on f'rever."

Elphaba is suddenly sent in a brief cyclone of panic; the poppies seem to carpet the whole world from where they stand and she cannot imagine that she and Ojo could be able to carry Glinda, Boq, and Singra at the same time through such immeasurable fields.

"Ojo," she says quickly, as Ojo sits down on the flowers, "are the flowers making you fall asleep?"

"Nah," he says, "I've dev'lop'd immunities t'all sorts o' fings from bein'n th' Pass all these years."

"Good, I may need your help." Elphaba shrugs her bag off and steps over toward Glinda, who is snoring delicately. Dropping to her knees, Elphaba grabs the fair-haired woman's shoulders and begins shaking her violently. "Glinda! Glinda, wake up!"

"No use," says Ojo, picking at his teeth. "Can't wake 'em up while we're near th' poppies."

"Is there an antidote for poppies?" begs Elphaba, now shaking Boq as hard as she can, thrusting him back and forth and up and down. She is racking her memory for anything about poppies she has ever learned.

"Snow," says Ojo simply.

Elphaba suddenly abandons Boq and commences to dig through her bag for the Grimmerie. She begins emptying the contents… some bread, a brown bottle full of oil for her to clean herself with, a small green bottle with a label reading MIRACLE ELI-, and, at last, the Grimmerie. She hastily pulls the heavy book from the bag, flips it open, and begins leafing through the violet pages full of silver ink, searching for something in the mystical book about snow. Letters and diagrams whirl across the pages, spinning, rearranging themselves as Elphaba reads. It is a strange language, but Elphaba is able to comprehend it.

At last she comes to a passage that mentions snow – a recipe for snow to fall thickly from the sky until the caster of the spell enlightens it to stop. "Wobni areh tre voer eh wemos…" She begins chanting the cryptic terminology aloud, unblinking as instructed on the page. Ojo has paused in his teeth-picking to stare at her, eyebrows up, as her tongue rolls off the enigmatic words of the spell.

Abruptly something on Elphaba's palm gives a light burning feeling – wetness. Something wet. Snow is suddenly falling all around, thick and heavy and white, blanketing the red flowers and icing over Glinda's gown. Boq is the first to waken, his eyes flutter open and he coughs, his breath rising in curls of white fog in the cold air. Singra sits up quickly, holding her head. Glinda is soon awake as well, blinkly profusely and when she stands her gown looks like a magnificent cake from the way the snow has stuck upon it.

Elphaba, however, has curled up, protecting herself against the wetness of the colorless precipitation. Glinda quickly digs through one of her bags and pulls out a pair of satin gloves and helps Elphaba cover her hands with them. Using the gloved hands as a shield for her face, Elphaba closes the Grimmerie and hides it away again in her bag and slings the bag over her shoulder. The others quickly gather their bags and they set off through the blizzard and the snow-covered flowers, Ojo running ahead of them to clear the poppies away to ensure that they are following the Yellow Brick Road.

_Please review!_


	15. XIV

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: So, I really don't like this chapter… but I needed to get it out of the way, because it sets up the rest of the story… To _**MarkysGirl**_, in the L. Frank Baum novels, the poppy field is enchanted of its own accord, not related to the Witches in anyway… Glinda doesn't even save them with snow, but the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman carry Dorothy out and they implore the help of hundreds of field mice to carry the Lion out. So, I used the Baum field and the movie idea for snow. And, here's Chapter the Fourteenth!_

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XIV.

"Are you alone?"

"No. There are four others with me… they are safe though."

"Enter."

Boq pulls away the flaps of the tent and the small group files in. Elphaba glances around, and finds the contents of the tent to be as bare and minimal as she would have expected the location of the leader of a revolt to be. A cot is set up along the wall directly in front, a flat pillow and a quilted blanket folded and placed nonchalantly on the makeshift bed. A table with an arrangement of swords and knives and one long, threatening musket sits along the left wall and a vain mirror sits opposite the table, a chair facing it. Beside the chair stands a tall, slender woman in a navy skirt and bottle green military jacket. Half of her dark curls are pinned up on her head and her slender, calloused hands are folding a cobalt silk dressing gown, which she drapes over the chair.

"General Ginger," says Boq, saluting her.

"At ease," she says, "if I remember right, you are no longer in the company of my army. You have no need to salute a captain who is not your own." She holds her head high and turns the chair to face the mirror, and sits to gaze in the mirror. She pulls a few pins from her pocket and continues the arrangement of the black locks. Ojo sits cross-legged on the ground by the door and Elphaba, Glinda, and Singra move forward into the tent.

"Are you the Ginger from the Resistance?" queries Singra without hesitation.

General Ginger has frozen in place. "Are you…" She trails off, gazing at Singra's reflection in the mirror.

"Heart," says Singra, "and this is –" She cuts herself off, remembering Elphaba's reaction last time she called her by her Resistance codename.

"Fae," supplies Elphaba.

General Ginger's eyes run down Elphaba's mirrored reflection, taking in the green flesh, the mane of blue-black curls, the strange pointed hat. She shifts her attention to Singra, the brown dress, the empty eyes, the coiled brown hair. "I was Ginger," she says, and the hard voice seems to soften. "I still am, I suppose…"

"Why are you leading the army of revolt?" asks Glinda. "Elphaba and Singra said the leader of the Resistance was a woman called Raven."

"Raven is dead," says Ginger harshly. Her hands have abandoned the task of positioning her hair, now lying motionless in her lap. "She was beheaded by a Gale Forcer in combat. But… Elphaba? Singra?"

"Our real names," Singra offers, and Elphaba knows she exchanging their names as a sort of pity for Raven's death. "I'm Singra, this is Elphaba."

"Viridis," says Ginger tentatively, "though Raven would disapprove of our revealing of identities."

"Has anything efficient been done?" asks Elphaba, moving slightly closer to Viridis. "The Emerald Palace conquered, the Wizard assassinated, anything?"

"No," says Viridis, a tone of disappointment and bitterness in her voice. "We have tried more than once to dominate the Emerald Palace, but the Gale Forcers and the Gillikinese army are strong fighters." With this, she casts a glance of anger and annoyance in Glinda's direction.

"Well, it's awfully brave of you to camp on Gillikinese territory," Glinda snaps.

"It is the perfect place," says Viridis coolly. "No one expects the leader of the army of revolt to camp in the grounds of the enemy." She begins arranging her hair again, twisting a lock of hair and pinning it to her scalp.

"Have you gained any knowledge?" tries Elphaba. "The location of the Wizard, a way to conquer the Palace…"

"Yes, actually," says Viridis. She stands and moves to the cot, beneath which stands a large trunk. Virids pulls out the trunk, a large craftsmanship of wood and iron hinges, buckles, and locks. Viridis begins searching through the pockets of her jacket for the key. "We are currently working on surrounding the City with cannons. We will blast them all at once and bring the walls of the City to the ground… This will give us easier access to the City, and therefore the Palace. As for the Wizard's location…" She finds the key and unlocks the chest. She lifts a silver instrument from the trunk, something that looks like a set of scales with a compass in the center and three rings that spin around the compass. "This instrument tracks usage of magic," she says. "It was pointing towards Munchkinland a day or two ago –"

"That was me," said Elphaba. "I magicked snow to save them from the poppy field." She gestured to Boq, Glinda, and Singra.

"I supposed it was some random act of magic such as that," says Viridis, "but before it switched to Munchkinland, and after it had left Munchkinland, it has been pointing northeast… And I'm beginning to wonder if the Wizard is living that way… after all, the Wizard was a man of magic whether it was illusionist magic or genuine, and it is entirely possible that he is hiding in northeast Gillikin." She reached into the chest and pulled out a scroll, which was quickly rolled out on a floor, revealing a map of Oz. "We are here," she says, pointing at an open area between the Emerald City and Lake Chorge. "I think the magic-tracer is pointing… here." She moves her finger up and around the drawing of Lake Chorge, almost into the Madeleines, a hilly range dividing Gillikin from Munchkinland.

"But we still need to conquer the City first," she says, "because it's more likely that the Wizard is hiding in the Palace still… after all, how would he have moved from the City to the Madeleines without being spotted?"

"The Wizard is a man of disguise," says Elphaba. "I'm sure he could have found a way."

"Ojo's gone," says Glinda suddenly.

Elphaba and Boq turn blankly to look at Glinda, then to the spot where Ojo had been sitting. "Is he trustworthy?" says Viridis, a sharpness edging into her voice.

"Yes," says Glinda, "if he wasn't he would have killed us long ago, in the Pass."

"Pass?" says Viridis warily. "Kumbricia's Pass?"

"Mm-hmm," says Glinda absently, running her fingers through her hair. "We found Ojo in Kumbricia's Pass… apparently he lived there for some seven years, isn't that right, Elphaba? And – oh…" Glinda trailed off to follow as the others hurried outside.

"Anyone who survived in Kumbricia's Pass cannot be trustworthy," says Viridis grimly. "We must find him."

"Ojo!" screams Glinda, hurrying away. "Ojo, where are you?" Boq has taken Singra and they have gone off to look for him as well, Singra calling for Ojo, though less shrilly than Glinda.

"Elphaba," says Viridis, turning around. "I must tell you – Elphaba?"

But there is no one there.

:---:

Elphaba's heart thumps wildly as she runs away from the camp, heading in the direction in which the magic-tracing compass points. She hears the calls for Ojo behind her, and one loud scream of her own name, but presses onward, Viridis's map in her bag and the compass in her hands.

She reaches Lake Chorge before long, and follows the shore eastbound, watching the compass carefully. She thinks of nothing, does not feel the pain that is growing in her ribs, ignores the heavy pounding of her heart, disregards the throbbing in her head, nearly forgets to breathe…

And suddenly, as the trees begin to grow denser, as she parts herself from the Lake, she hears something… someone else breathing, panting, ahead of her…

And then – "Fae?"

Elphaba looks up with a sharp intake of breath. Standing not twenty feet before her is a tall man, shirtless, barefoot, clad only in pants of white silk. Dark hair spills over his shoulders, and two warm, brown eyes stare into her own. His arms are strong, attractively muscular, his shoulders broad, his chest barreled, his skin a darker shade than most… the nose is straight, and the mouth curved in a sideways smile… and on his face, and on his chest, and on his shoulders and arms, is a strange pattern of tattoos… blue diamond tattoos…

"Fiyero?"

:---:

_Please review!_


	16. XV

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: Finally, everything comes out… we reveal the secret plot that has been brewing beneath this entire novel..._

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XV.

Fiyero lifts his hand and places one long finger over his lips, gesturing for Elphaba to be quiet. He then curls the finger toward himself and mouths the words, "Follow me." He turns and before Elphaba can think, he has disappeared in the looming woods. Abandoning all thoughts of the war and the Wizard, Elphaba throws the compass in her bag and runs as fast as she can in the direction in which Fiyero had disappeared. A branch knocks her hat off her head, but Elphaba hardly notices or cares. She catches sight of the white silk pants again, the dark skin of Fiyero's back, the diamond tattoos that spill over his shoulders and calls his name again.

"Fiyero!" she calls.

He whirls around and stops and she nearly collides with him – she stops before him, inches apart, close enough to feel his warm breath… but there is no breath… only the still, warm air of Gillikin summer…

She raises her eyes expectantly at him and he lifts his finger to his lips again. An urge comes to her, an urge that has been missing since that fateful Lurlinemas Day, an urge to feel the tight, warm skin of Fiyero's body, to run her hands down his arms, feeling the wavy muscles, to lay her head on his chest, to feel loved…

She lifts a hand to place on his chest but just before she touches the bare flesh, he takes a sudden step back and shakes his head. "No," his mouth forms, but there is no sound. He steps away and Elphaba reaches out toward him. He shakes his head again, turns, and runs. Elphaba pauses to hike up her skirt and tuck the folds into her waist before following Fiyero's retreating form through the dense trees.

The trees, before dry, clean and covered entirely with the light bark of the Gillikinese trees, are becoming mossier as Elphaba follows Fiyero further into the woods; indeed, the dark green moss seems to cover the entire trunks of the trees before long. A sharp intake of breath comes to Elphaba as she feels the moisture in the air increase. "Fiyero?" she calls again.

Fiyero stops and turns.

"Where are we going?" asks Elphaba, hurrying to catch up. "And why – I mean, _how_ are you here? I thought… I mean, I thought the Gale Forcers k– well?"

Fiyero only smiles mysteriously and puts a finger to his lips.

"Let me touch you," she says, moving toward him – but again he steps away, avoiding contact. He blinks slowly, then retreats backwards, curling his finger again in a motion to follow him.

"Yero –" But he is off again and Elphaba hesitates for a moment, clutching the stitch in her side, but the thought of losing Fiyero in the coming marshes because of temporary pain mocks her and she hurries to catch up.

Large puddles can be seen in the woods now, some nearly the size of small ponds. It crosses Elphaba's mind that the humidity is rising, a characteristic not native to Gillikinese weather, but as Fiyero disappears behind a cluster of trees she forgets the humidity and the puddles.

"Fiyero!" she shouts as she makes the turn around the clustered trees and stops short.

An area of marsh and swamp is laid out before her, dirty brown water mixed with mud and spotted with mossy spots of land and rock. At the center of the swamp stands a large shack, propped up by long, thin pieces of wood, forcing the appearance of an enormous spider. The house is rickety and poorly built and it sways dangerously in the air, higher up than Elphaba cares to go. Fiyero is already climbing the long rope ladder that leads to the house, the glassless windows glowing golden in the darkening light. The bottom of the ladder treads in the murky water, yet Fiyero seems as dry as ever.

"Fiyero!" says Elphaba and Fiyero turns to look down at her. "The water… I… I can't…"

As if to answer her, a small wooden boat floats out from the shadows cast by the house. Two paddles rest in the bow of the boat and, though she hesitates, Elphaba can think only of following Fiyero and she hurries down toward the water to wait for the boat to reach the muddy shore.

As the boat comes into Elphaba reach, she places both hand on the bow and pushes to turn it around, facing the spidery house. Climbing quickly in, Elphaba grabs a paddle and pushes it against the dry ground, propelling herself out into the water. Biting her lip firmly, and nearly drawing blood, Elphaba paddles her way across the water toward the rope ladder. Fiyero has reached the top and disappears inside and Elphaba paddles faster…

Elphaba struggles out of the boat and climbs upward, dragging herself up the ladder with her arms, her feet useless because of her big boots. Cursing herself for wearing such foolish shoes, she wills the muscles in her arms to hold out until she reaches the top…

Elphaba throws her hands over the bottom of the house and feels around for something to grab onto. Her hands find a rope, and a quick tug tells her it is secured. She pulls herself into the house with the help of the rope and as soon as she is fully in, lying breathless on the ground, she looks around the shack.

One wall of the shack and half of another are covered entirely with shelves full of books. The rest of the room is bare but for a large pewter cauldron in a corner, and a cloaked figure hunched over it, turned away from Elphaba. Fiyero is no where inside.

"Hello," says Elphaba firmly, but the figure does not turn around. "Did someone just climb in here?" she asks confidently. "A man, he was shirtless, a black man with blue diamond tattoos on his face and chest and arms and long hair and –"

"No need to describe darling Fiyero, dearie," says the voice of an ancient woman.

"He's here then?" asks Elphaba – she sees no doors in the room –

"Oh, no," says the woman, and Elphaba suddenly recognizes something in her voice. "No, no, dearie, Fiyero is dead."

"I just saw him," says Elphaba. "He just lead me here, he climbed up that rope ladder and came into this shack.

"No, no," says the crone and she turns to select a book from the shelf, her face still hidden from Elphaba. "No, no, dearie, Fiyero is not here. He is dead – dead, dead, dead… he shan't return, he shan't – shan't, shan't, shan't…"

"I just saw –"

"An illusion," says the old woman, "a simple recipe, really… I shall prepare another shortly, of course, to entice that dear girl… Singra? Of course, she was 'Heart' last time I interacted with you, wasn't she?"

"Who are you?" asks Elphaba finally.

The woman turns around. Her skin is old, wrinkled, papery, yellowed and grayed… Her grin is slightly lopsided with brown and missing teeth, her dark eyes slightly bulging, her nose crooked, her hair brown and stringy. She cackles shrilly, sending a chill dancing down Elphaba's spine and, at last, answers: "Mother Yackle, dearie."

"Yackle?" asks Elphaba. Such a familiar name, yet Elphaba cannot place it… and that face, that horrible, twisted face… such a familiar face… and that voice, that voice that is raspy yet smooth as silk…

"Of course you think the name is familiar, dearie," says Yackle, flicking through the pages of the book she has selected and it is a moment before Elphaba recognizes the purple pages of the Grimmerie. "Yackle has been tracking you your entire life. Yackle makes contact every once in a while, confirming that you are the right girl of green skin, but Yackle keeps her distance mostly, Yackle keeps her distance."

"What… why did you lure me here?" asks Elphaba. The harsh reality has suddenly sunk in, biting her harder than even Fiyero's death did – _Fiyero is not alive… Yackle created an illusion… that wasn't Fiyero… that's why there was no warm breath, that's why he prevented contact, that's why he barely spoke… he was an illusion… an illusion… Fiyero's still dead… Fiyero's always been dead… Fiyero's dead… dead…_

"Ah, Yackle had to use darling Fiyero, dearie," says Yackle. "Who else would have come running for? Not Glinda, she was with you all the time, not Boq or Singra, they were as well… Nessarose, perhaps, but what was the use of taking a risk of you ignoring something? You wouldn't have come for Ojo, of course, Ojo is useless, Ojo is foolish… Ojo is not what you wanted… Ojo is not what you thought, either… Yackle is Ojo. Yackle has always been Ojo, ever since he was lost in the Pass…" Yackle points to a corner where a body is, crumpled and dead – Ojo. "Yackle is not this crone, either, Yackle is a spirit… an ancient spirit, a spirit only alive to pass the Soul onto you…"

"You killed Fiyero," whispers Elphaba.

"Ah, but no," says Yackle, flicking through a page. "Yackle interferes not with your life unless it is absolutely necessary – keeping you alive, such things as that. I kill no one, I save no one, save for you."

"But how could you be here, drawing the attention of Viridis's magic compass if you were with us as Ojo?" asks Elphaba, connecting the dots in her mind.

"Ah, Elphaba has figured out one of the secrets of Yackle… Yackle is so old, Yackle is so old, Yackle can be in one place at one time. Yackle possesses bodies, dead bodies, and so can possess more than one body at a time… It is a complicated matter, Elphaba, complicated, complicated, complicated…"

Elphaba starts to back toward the door, quickly formulating a plan of escape in mind, an escape that would be swift but would not require landing in the water below…

"Propinquus vestri mens occludo ianua!" cries Yackle and Elphaba whirls around to see the door has vanished – the wall behind her is solid, with no opening. "A gift of Yackle's," the old woman says, flipping another page. "Mind-reading, has Elphaba not yet noticed? Yackle reads mind, mind-reading of minds…" Yackle's finger runs down the page of the Grimmerie and she cries, "Kumbricias funis vadum redimio vos!"

Chains that were not there before suddenly begin snaking their way up and around Elphaba's legs, crawling upward to bind her arms and curl around her torso and neck. They pull her towards the wall and pin her there, despite her struggling and cries of protest.

"Yackle cannot have the Receiver leaving, Yackle cannot, cannot, cannot," mutters Yackle, flipping again through the pages.

"What do you want with me?" says Elphaba desperately, fighting with the chain that continues to wrap itself tighter around her leg.

"Ah, Elphaba knows not of the plan of Kumbricia, Elphaba knows not of the Soul of Kumbricia, Yackle must tell Elphaba… Perhaps Yackle is better telling through Ojo." And without warning the eyes of the crone roll back in her head and she collapses, the Grimmerie still in her hands.

"Thousands of years ago, Queen Kumbricia and Queen Lurline ruled the world," says Ojo, suddenly standing. Elphaba suddenly feels sick to her stomach, finding it strange to hear such perfectly spoken speech come from Ojo's lips. "Queen Lurline was a foolish faerie, and gave up her life willingly 'for the good of the people,'" spat Ojo. "Ah, but Queen Kumbricia… a wise queen, a wise, wise woman… she preserved her soul with a thousand spells and more to be passed on from body to body, to preserve her life… She found a willing follower, a woman called Aurex, and made sure that Aurex was impregnated. (1) Kumbricia rid the child of its soul the moment it was born, and raised the child as her own. As Queen Kumbricia died, she transferred her soul to the child, who became the first Holder of the Soul. Each Holder would ensure that the soul of one child was stolen and when that child was ready, or when the Holder was prepared to die, the soul would be transferred.

"Naturally, it could not be just only child… there were certain traits, traits that reflected defining characteristics of Queen Kumbricia… sensitivity to water, sharp teeth at birth… their was another line, the descended line of relations through Kumbricia's brother Roquat the Red. (1) The current descendent of Roquat the Red, called the Seeker, found the child, called the Receiver, at birth by following the description, and rid it of its soul by showing it an orb, a window that showed the child to the devil, permitting the devil to steal the child's soul… the child always would utter a single word that would confirm that the soul had been taken – 'Horrors.'"

"Turtle Heart," whispers Elphaba. "Turtle Heart is the descendent of Roquat the Red… Turtle Heart was my Seeker… and Singra is to be the Seeker of the next Receiver… and right now… I'm the Receiver?"

"Yes," says Yackle through Ojo's mouth.

"And if I refuse to Receive?"

"Oh, you'll Receive the Soul," says Yackle, "I'll be sure of that."

"Are you allergic to water then?" asks Elphaba, her mind formulating a plan.

"Indeed," says Yackle, "though not in this body… in this body, I have no allergy to water for reasons unknown… Perhaps it is because of the unluckiness that followed Ojo, perhaps because of his luck… I do not know, and do not care. I question not the powers of Kumbricia, I only do her bidding."

"Is that all there is to the story of Kumbricia's soul?" asks Elphaba; she decides she needs to keep Yackle talking to stop her from reading her mind, keep Yackle's mind busy so she cannot wander into hers… Elphaba's eyes flicker to the collapsed body of the old woman and then quickly back to the Yackle-possessed body of Ojo.

"Ah, nearly," says Yackle. "Small details here and there… once a Holder passes on the Soul to the next Receiver, she is simply referred to as a Krumbric Witch… the line as a whole is referred to as the Krumbric Witches. There have been several famous Krumbric Witches throughout time, though the famous ones usually try to hide the truth of the line – Saint Aelphaba, for instance. Many claimed she stepped beyond the waterfall to hide her beauty from the outside world so she could focus on becoming godly… nonsense… she intended for the mass amount of water to kill her, and that it did, for she hated being a Krumbric Witch… the line nearly stopped after her, but somehow Kumbricia's soul managed to flee and find the current Receiver… the Seeker managed to explain everything to the Receiver, as the Holder, Aelphaba, did not. I have also failed to mention where Singra will come in to play – usually, the Seeker plays an important role in the transferring of the Soul, but as Turtle Heart is dead, Singra will have to take his place… and thus…" Ojo's eyes suddenly roll back in his head and his body collapses.

The old woman shakes her head and stands up slowly. "Yackle prefers this body, Yackle feels at home in this body," says Yackle and Elphaba shudders, disturbed. The crone begins flicking through the pages of the Grimmerie as though nothing had happened, as though the spirit or the soul within it had not just left the body to possess another body and then returned. "Ah, here, Yackle has found it," chatters the old woman. "Partum furta per is Boq somes transporto him ut Boq quod Singra!" A crooked finger is suddenly pointed at Ojo's body, which vanishes.

"And now, Elphaba," says Yackle, closing the Grimmerie and grinning with satisfaction, "Yackle must wait."

-----

(1) Hopefully you remember the Aurex from earlier… it was a name Nessarose said she liked but wouldn't name her daughter that because Aurex was Kumbricia's assistant. (See chapter VII)

(2) Roquat the Red is known as the Nome King in L. Frank Baum's books. There is no real known connection to the Krumbric Witch in the Baum books.

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Please review!


	17. XVI

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: This was the hardest thing in the world to write and I was indeed near tears as I did it, so please do not think me to be completely heartless… there is a reason for everything._

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XVI.

The tall walls outside the Emerald City seem hardly different from the last Glinda saw them. The green walls have not been affected by the battle within, except for a bit of crumbling along the top. A few of the emeralds lining the top of the wall had been knocked askew or even off completely, lying on the ground, chipped and waiting to be stolen by a homeless Munchkinlander. But the walls seem to be less enchanting – the last time Glinda entered them, back in the days when she was ignorant to the Wizard's sins, when she and Elphaba came and met the rain-dancing skeleton, the walls seemed bright and inviting and full of promising dreams. Now the same walls held evil, weighted down with the threats of war and darkened by the terrorization of combat.

A long line of cannons sit waiting in the free fields, one even set in the dead center of the Yellow Brick Road. The black cannons loom in their straight row, pointed threateningly in the direction of the Emerald City – Glinda can hardly bear the thought of watching those cannons explode, watching all that beauty destroyed. She takes a step closer to Boq, squeezes Singra's hand a little tighter, watching as Viridis paces nervously and thoughtfully, wearing down the grass around her.

At last Viridis stops. "We must go on," she says simply. "The war does not simply pause because there is one missing woman or one missing boy. We must press onward. Is that correct?" She looks up at Glinda and Boq as though for approval, and Glinda, unsure of what Viridis is asking of her, nods her head simply, her pale curls bouncing.

Without warning, Viridis throws her right arm in the hair, signaling a loud _BANG!_

Glinda jumps, lets go of a shaken Singra and throws her arms around Boq's neck as the walls of the City are attacked by the cannonballs and thrust to the ground. Glinda looks over her shoulder and lets out a dry sob; Singra says nothing, but wrings her hands out nervously; a line of anxiousness has appeared between Viridis' eyebrows and she presses a single finger to her lips. The walls of the Emerald City crumble, immense clouds of dust rising and a golden-red fire glowing menacingly in the depths of the chaos.

Within moments a woman is running toward them, clad in dirty rags and carrying a limp child. She stumbles as she nears Glinda and falls to the ground; the child is thrown from her arms and as the body rolls over, Glinda realizes with a start that the little boy is covered in blood.

"He's dead!" the woman wails, tears streaming down her dirty cheeks. "My son," she sobs softly, inching towards Glinda, grabbing her skirt, "my son, my son… he's dead…"

Glinda steps backwards, frightened and disturbed by the sight of the crying woman and the dead boy.

"They're coming," says Viridis sharply and she suddenly seizes Singra by the shoulders and guides her to one of the cannon men, ordering him to protect her with all his might.

"Go," pleads Glinda, trying to push the woman off of her. "Please, go."

"I need him," the woman whispers, staring wide-eyed at the boy. "I can't go without him."

"Please," begs Glinda, "you'll be killed."

"My soul is already killed."

Viridis presents Glinda and Boq each with a sword, sending Glinda into a sense of alarm. "Surely," begs Glinda, "they won't attack us?"

"Oh, but surely they will," says Viridis gravely.

And suddenly, emerging from the ruins of the Emerald City comes a stampede of people, fighting with an assortment of weapons: swords, clubs, shovels, rakes, spears, daggers, spades, lances. Glinda's ears flood with the cries of men and women shouting. A greater diversity of people Glinda has never seen – the Gale Forcers in their green , the blood-red cross on their chest; her own Army of Gillikin, dressed in impractical costumes of violet plush and silver tassels, silver buttons down the front, silk shirt showing through wear the plush jackets are torn; Munchkinlanders, Quadlings, and the rebels, all dressed differently; old men fighting strong women; a grown Gale Forcer struggling fiercely against a red-headed teenage boy.

"Fight!" screams Viridis, throwing herself upon a Gale Forcer, slicing him neatly on the arm. Without protest, Boq has joined the red-headed teenager and within moments the Gale Forcer is on his knees, begging for mercy. Glinda, however, finds it more difficult to jump into a war. But as the Gale Forcers begin to eye her both hatefully and lustfully, she tosses her hair, adjusts her enormous skirt, grips the handle of her sword with both hands, and plunges her sword into the leg of a Gale Forcer.

The Gale Forcer screams in agony. "Sorry!" calls Glinda, running off to find Boq and assist him.

As Glinda dodges through the crowd of battle, she suddenly notices a purple-uniformed soldier fighting brutally with one of Viridis' rebel soldiers, secluded from the rest – behind him stands Singra, biting her lip and looking nervous. Glinda pushes several men out of the way, running towards the fighting couple. Raising her sword, she hits the Gillikinese solider with the hilt of her sword, rendering him unconscious. "Take care of her," she cries at the Resistance soldier, and he nods curtly as Glinda sweeps away.

Singra feels hands on her shoulders and hears the rough manly voice that had led her away from Viridis earlier: "We must back away – the fighting is intense, and if we do not step away, well… let's just move."

But as the man takes her hands and leads her away from the noises of the battle, a young, familiar voice suddenly reaches her ears: "Singra! Singra! It's me, Ojo!"

Singra swings her head wildly, trying to determine the direction from which the voice came. "Ojo?" she calls. "Ojo, where are you?"

"Ojo?" the rough-voiced man asks, clearly confused.

"Ojo's not here, Singra," says another familiar voice, a smooth one Singra recognizes as Boq's. "We gave up looking for him long ago."

"No, no," says Singra, "I just heard him… I just heard him calling for me."

Boq looks at Singra, his eyebrows raised. "Singra, that's – oh!"

Ojo is suddenly running toward them and Boq is quickly apologizing to Singra. "Elphaba is in danger," says Ojo. He looks completely unfazed by the violent battle that backgrounds Boq, Singra, and the Resistance soldier. "You must go to her at once."

"Where's your accent?" Singra demands, but Boq ignores her.

"Where is she?" he asks.

"You can just follow me, it's easier that way," says Ojo.

Without thinking, Boq has run off into the crowd to find Glinda. A blow to his back stops him in his tracks and, whirling around, Boq slices at thin air. The clubbed Gale Forcer's back is retreating, however, and Boq acknowledges that he has not the time to fight. "Glinda!" he shouts. "Glinda – where are you? Glinda!"

A body lies on the ground, a form standing over it triumphantly with several shocked Gillikinese soldiers looking on, but Boq ignores it, running deeper into the forest of fighting people, shouting for Glinda. He begins a circle in the crowd, asking everyone who has paused in their battles if they had seen Glinda of Gillikin anywhere about, but no one seemed to have seen her. "You can't miss her, she's wearing a giant pink dress," he says a hundred times and more, but no one can recall.

Viridis appears in the crowd. "Boq, I – I am so sorry…"

"What?" he asks, looking over her shoulder, searching the conflicting mass for Glinda.

"Oh, you do not know yet," she says smoothly. "Come."

The whole world seems to become a surreal realm as Viridis leads Boq, unscathed, through the people. Boq realizes suddenly that the fighting seems to have subdued, and he briefly wonders why. The wondering does not last long.

Lying in a heap on the ground is Glinda, blood pouring from her chest. The ground around her is stained with the thick, scarlet liquid, and her skirt lies flat, burdened by the weight of the blood. Boq chokes on a dry sob and throws himself to the ground beside her, grabbing her bare shoulders and shaking them feebly. "No," he whispers, "no, no, no!" Tears are streaming down his face and he does not remember beginning to cry. Glinda's eyes are closed gently, her lips paled, her lashes resting delicately, her features relaxed. She would have been asleep...

"Come," says a voice and Boq looks up sharply to see Ojo, extending his hand. Boq looks back at Glinda and leans down to place a long, soft kiss on her lips.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. Another tear falls from his cheek and lands on her own, bringing the appearance of Glinda crying at her own death. Boq turns and rises and follows Ojo through the silent crowd.

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Please review!


	18. XVII

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: So I know it's been forever since I've updated but I've been having some major writer's block on this. There's only a chapter and an epilogue left, so enjoy and review while it lasts. :-D Sorry this chapter is so short.  
__

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XVII.

"Elphaba's friends should be here soon," croaks Yackle. "Yackle can feel it. Yackle will start now."

Elphaba attempts to move her arm, trying to pull it from the chain, but the chain squeezes only tighter around the limb. Yackle, in the body of the old hag-woman, has abandoned the Grimmerie and has now selected another volume from the library-walls of the elevated shack.

"This is Kumbricia's book," the woman chatters. "She wrote this, preserving her spells and thoughts, detailing the history of her soul-saving as well as describing the process of transferring her soul from one body into another." Yackle finds the page she is looking for and tears it from the book. She places the open book on a shelf as she studies the torn page, and Elphaba watches with horror as another page is grown to replace that which was removed.

The door swings open and suddenly the iron chains that have snaked themselves around Elphaba's body feel icy-cold. Ojo's body comes climbing in the window and walks squarely over to where Yackle stands, reading the page. "They are here," says Ojo in a flat voice. His body goes limp and Elphaba chokes. Yackle flicks a finger absently and Ojo's body is sent flying across the room, banging into a wall and then dropping to the floor.

There is a splash outside and Elphaba hears Singra's yell and Boq's voice calling instructions to the blind woman. Elphaba opens her mouth to shout a warning to them, but before a sound can escape her lips, Yackle has cried, "Taceo silens!" and a thick rope has wound its way around her head and in her mouth, gagging her. "Ego mihi mos vescor viscus!" whispers Yackle harshly. "Capiet animus quod animus mos ago juge simper!" She looks up at Elphaba through slit eyes and Elphaba hears the sounds of Boq struggling to help Singra climb the rope ladder. "It has begun," she says wickedly. "The passing of Kumbricia's soul has begun!"

The open door bangs shut and then open again and Boq and Singra come climbing into the room. Boq stands up with a speed Elphaba has never seen and he throws himself upon the old woman, choking her by wrapping his arms around her firmly. Yackle shrieks and Boq is yelling to give himself the strength and willpower to hang on.

"Elphaba?" cries Singra.

Elphaba groans as loud as she can and Singra begins crawling on her hands and knees in the direction of Elphaba's groaning. Elphaba tries to stomp on the floor with her boot, but the attempt is in vain as the chains wrap tighter around her leg. Boq has knocked Yackle to the ground before long and has thrown himself over to Elphaba, working quickly to release the knots in her gag.

Yackle is up again as soon as the gag is removed. "Taceo sil–" Singra has now wrapped her arms around Yackle's neck, preventing her from repeating the gagging spell.

"It's Kumbricia's soul," says Elphaba to Boq as he works at the chains. "It's possessing Yackle, it's been possessing people for hundreds of years… It's to possess me next and she needs Singra to do it – Boq, you need to get her _out of here_, Singra is the descendent of Kumbricia's brother!"

"Elphaba, you're not making sense – and there's something I need to tell you… it's about Glinda –"

"Tell me later," says Elphaba as Boq at last frees her from the chains, which slump to the floor and slither like a pile of iron snakes. "We have to get Singra out of here."

"How can we do that?" begs Boq. "It was difficult getting her up here, but we'll have to throw her out to get her down!"

"Yackle's allergic to water," says Elphaba. "If we can knock down the shack –"

There is a strangled yelp and Elphaba and Boq look up to see Yackle throttling Singra, the old woman's wrinkled fingers clamped tightly about the blind woman's throat.

"No!" cries Boq, suddenly hurling himself across the room toward the two women. Boq does not stop, however, and Yackle, Singra, and Boq crash into the wall. The crudely-built shack comes ripping apart, and the three tumble to the lurking, unnaturally still waters. A tremendous _splash _vibrates the raised shack, and Elphaba loses her balance. One of the beams that support the shack splinters, sloping the crude structure; Elphaba grabs for something to hold as books fly out and into the dark waters. Her hands find one of the book shelves; the cauldron rolls heavily out of the house and Ojo's body slides downward – his shirt is caught on a nail in the floor, however. Elphaba lets out a shout as Yackle's precious Grimmerie slides out and into the darkness below.

"She's gone!" Boq calls up to her. "Yackle… she's disintegrated or something, the water ate at her flesh like acid… Elphaba!"

The wooden splinters in the board are tearing at the skin of Elphaba's hands and only the fear of the water below keeps her hanging on. The fabric of Ojo's shirt tears and his body slides out. Elphaba shouts a warning to Boq just before the sounds of Ojo's body hitting the water come.

"Elphaba, you can come down… it's safe!"

But Elphaba looks below and all she sees is the mysterious water – she can almost feel the pure liquid ripping dryly at her skin like a whip. Something cracks above and suddenly Elphaba is moving downward as the entire house tilts, landing gracelessly on the dry land below.

There is a long silence after the crash – Elphaba manages to find her way out of the pile of wood and lets out a shout calling for Boq. Her shout is met with a cry. "I have Heart!" he announces. "She's safe."

Two shadowy shapes come lurking out of the waters, which grow unnaturally still once more. Elphaba gropes in the darkness, feeling for them, and suddenly they have thrown their arms around her and Heart is crying. "She's dead, Elphaba," she moans. "She's… she's dead."

"Yackle?"

"No," says Boq, struggling against a wicked cough. "No, Yackle's dead, but… Elphaba, Glinda's dead."

There is no reaction but for Elphaba collapsing to the ground – no noise, no sound, no tears, just silence. Heart weeps, wet tears streaming from blind eyes and Boq is shaking with sobs now. Elphaba sits in silence, questioning the Unnamed God how Glinda could die and staring at her hands, sopping wet. And, as Elphaba stares at them, she realizes with a start that her hands do not sting.

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_Please review! _


	19. XVIII

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: So this is the last chapter (not including the epilogue). It only takes a minute to review, and I would love to get this story up to 100 reviews before it ends… that's only 19 more! So please, help the cause and review. :-D_

_This message was brought to you by the Foundation for More Reviews._

_My name is Fiyero Oberon and I approved this message.

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_

**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

XVIII.

The Emerald City is silent, disturbingly silent, as the small group makes their way through the streets. What used to be houses or apartments is now rubble, what were once skyscrapers are now ruins. Scraps of building material, ripped from the structures they once belonged to, all in shades of green, lie littering the road. Jade bricks, lime wood, olive steel, viridian shingles, even solid emeralds litter the streets of the City of Emeralds. Mingled with the scattered matter are lifeless bodies, each one a product of the raging war – evidence of the war is everywhere, swords, daggers, spears, arrows, all varieties of weaponry lying around. Elphaba feels Boq shudder beside her and is aware of the urge to gag as well…

Elphaba and Boq are guiding Singra around a corpse in the middle of the street when the blind woman suddenly comments on the smell and it is only then that Elphaba notices it. The stench is magnificently disgusting, a mix of blood and urine and vomit and raw, unadulterated death.

The greenness of the City is interrupted by the small pool of sticky, dark-red blood. The wind has been picking up ever since Yackle had been destroyed in the water – no one could figure out exactly what had happened, they only knew that the body Yackle had been possessing had somehow disappeared and they had found only the tattered clothes she had been wearing. Elphaba suspects now that the old body had disintegrated or had been eaten away as though thrown in acid, not water, but there is simply no way to know for sure – it is all speculation.

Except for the forest-green iron of the gates being torn from their hinges, twisted, and distorted, and a few broken windows, the Palace looks relatively untouched. The tall doors are standing open, however, and Elphaba turns to Boq. "You're staying here," she whispers.

"No, I –"

"Boq," snaps Elphaba, whipping around to face him as the wind picks up even more and the rain begins to pelt them below – Elphaba's effort is suddenly thrown into ignore the absence of the water biting at her skin, struggles to disregard the lack of the allergy she's lived with her whole life. "Shut up and listen to me. We don't know what's in there – the Wizard's guards could be sitting there, waiting for us to just –"

"No, they couldn't, Elphaba!" shouts Boq. "No, they couldn't!"

"Would you keep your voice down?"

"They're dead, Elphaba," cries Boq, ignoring her wicked plea. "They're all dead!" He stares at her, wide-eyed, the raining plastering his silver hair to his face, raindrops rolling down his cheeks, mingling with the tears that roll down parallel paths. Yet despite the insanity reflected in Boq's face, Elphaba recognizes the fear there as well. "There is no point in staying out here – there's more danger out here than in there, Elphaba, can't you see that?"

"Yes," says Elphaba. "In ways, you're right – but, in ways, you're wrong. The Wizard is in there, the most powerful and evil and fake Wizard that Oz has ever known. I've lost too many through this war to risk any –"

"I lost her too, Elphaba," spits Boq. "And it doesn't matter if we're in there or out here, we're still taking a risk of –"

"NO!" roars Elphaba. "STAY HERE!" She storms away from them towards the Palace. Boq watches Elphaba's retreating back and wraps his arm around Singra, the wind rising even higher, and together they shake with silent sobs.

-:-:-

Elphaba remembers the way to the Throne Room without thought – it is almost as though she is walking the halls years ago, Glinda by her side, blind and eager to meet the Wizard for the first time. Left down this corridor, right at the tin sculpture, and the doors are right – _there._

Elphaba runs down the passage, her heart thumping wildly – she has no weapon, nothing to protect herself, nothing to kill the Wizard with should she get the chance, nothing but her bag with the brown bottle of oil, her Grimmerie, and her mother's little green bottle, but she does not care. Adrenaline is pumping and all she wants is to be in that room with that wicked man – and she suddenly realizes she doesn't need a weapon because if she is given the opportunity, she will kill that man with her bare hands…

She bursts through the doors, prepared and expecting to see a tall man working on his next disguise, unaware of the dying war around him. Instead she finds a little old man with a balding head and white hair and trim little moustache on his upper lip, cowering under the threat of a sword. He is tiny and wrinkled and wears a white laboratory coat stained with blood. His right cheek has been cut and a line of blood runs down his face from it and his eyes are wide with fear. He looks up at Elphaba for a moment, and then returns his gaze quickly to the sword before him.

Viridis stands there, poised marvelously with a long sword pointed threateningly at the Wizard. She looks up at Elphaba as the Wizard does, but for a shorter amount of time because Elphaba realizes Viridis is too clever to let her gaze wander from the Wizard for too long.

A dead body lies absently in the corner.

"Hello there, Fae." Viridis is smiling, seeming to enjoy the dangerous position in which she has placed the former ruler of Oz.

"Let me do it," Elphaba suddenly begs.

Viridis arches an eyebrow. "Why should I?"

Elphaba pants, recovering from her flight down the corridor. "He was responsible for the murder of my best friend and my lover," she whispers intensely. "He has done more personal harm to me than he can possibly imagine. Let me do it," she repeats.

"No," says Viridis, smiling, a nasty bit of tease in her voice and in her grin.

"Dammit, Ginger," cries Elphaba, running forward and stumbling on her own feet. She falls and the contents of her bag spill – the brown bottle shatters and oil runs all over the floor and the Wizard shows a brief interest in Elphaba's possession of a Grimmerie. But it is the little green bottle marked MIRACLE ELI- that his attention is suddenly focused on. It rolls to him and he bends slowly to pick it up.

The wicked Wizard examines it for a moment, biting his lower lip. "Where did you get this?" His eyes look up, searching to meet Elphaba's gaze.

"It was my mother's," says she.

And suddenly the Wizard has burst into tears and he is laughing and crying all at the same time – but before Elphaba can ask why, Viridis has plunged the sword square into the old man's chest, right through his heart, and the Wizard is dead.

"You did it," says Elphaba, lowly and dangerously. "You killed Glinda."

Viridis looks up, a sly look on her face. "I didn't think it was that difficult to figure out."

Elphaba's nostrils flare and she steps closer to Viridis, every move dripping with malice. "Why would you –" She chokes on her words, unable to finish the question.

"It was the simplest way," says Viridis. "Kill a prominent Gillikinese figure and the Gillikinese soldiers stop fighting. You did not stick around long enough to see Glinda die or watch the effects of Lady Glinda's death – the Gillikinese soldiers all went into mourning, automatically, like robots, leaving only what was left of the Gale Force to fight against the Resistance, the Munchkinlanders, and the Quadlings – we beat them, we killed every last Gale Forcer, and then it was easy to track down the Wizard."

Elphaba gazed at the smirking Viridis with contempt and disgust in her eyes before moving to the Wizard's body. Seizing the hilt of the sword, she yanked it gracelessly from the old man's chest and waved it threateningly at Viridis. "I should kill you right now," she whispers hatefully. "I could kill you and no one would ever know whether you killed the Wizard and then killed yourself or if the Wizard killed you and then he killed himself."

"You may want to," says Viridis, smirking, "but you won't. Do you want to know why, Fae? Because you're a good person."

Elphaba plunges the sword into Viridis' chest and walks smoothly and evenly out of the room.

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_Please review!_


	20. Epilogue

_Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not._

_Author's Note: So it's finally over… Thanks to everyone for there amazing compliments on this story. It started out as a simple idea I had on my paper route and developed into a full-blown 20-chapter story! Thanks to all of my faithful reviewers and the amazing _**Michelle** _and_ **Kailee** _for listening to me while I ranted about what I needed to happen but couldn't figure out how and listening while I sat there and talked to myself for ten minutes trying to figure out this plot. So, an epilogue and one last review, and we're through here! _:-D

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**Resistance  
**_by Fiyero Oberon_

Epilogue

"And so," said Singra, finally coming to her conclusion, "Boq is President, for now, and then after his terms has expired, Oz will vote for the next President. That's how a democracy works."

"I still don't understand," says Elphaba. "But, then again, I guess I don't care. As long as it doesn't involve me too heavily and as long as the Animal persecutions have stopped, I don't care."

The weather had surprisingly cleared up only a few hours before the funeral had started, giving Elphaba and Milla just enough time to set everything up. It had been decided that Glinda's funeral would be held in Munchkinland, a private affair. Avaric is over there, his wife on his arm even as he flirts shamelessly with a young woman Glinda had gone to nursery school with. Milla sits in a corner with Frexspar and Nanny, looking tired and ready to move on. Boq is avoiding his wife, instead taking turns leading his young children through the gardens of the funeral home. Shenshen and Pfannee are over there, all black taffeta gowns and white silk gloves and veils, their hands twisted together and their eyes red and puffy.

An odd silence has fallen over the funeral, except for the quiet laughing of Boq and Milla's children. Avaric has made his way over to the casket where Glinda lays, though he doesn't seem to look at her long before he is facing and flirting with the young woman again.

"Elphaba," says Singra at last, "you realize we are not sisters, right?"

"What?"

Singra sighs. "Well, that day, on the Yellow Brick Road… I said something about us being half-sisters all the time, and not realizing it… well… we're not… Turtle Heart is my father and my mother's name is Perla… you're mother is Melena and, well, apparently the Wizard was your father… So we are not related at all. _Nessarose _is my half-sister, but... not you."

"Oh. Right." Elphaba finds that she can hardly react to this information. She feels so emotionally unattached from losing Glinda that realizing that she and Singra are not half-sisters seems immensely insignificant.

This is the same funeral home and church that was used for Nessarose's memorial service and the same pool sits there in the ground, floating twenty-some candles – Elphaba has not bothered to count them. She feels numb, horribly numb and is glad she has already made her decision to pass the Eminency to Singra.

"I'm not a Thropp," Singra had said.

"You're close enough," Elphaba had said firmly. "Besides, as Munchkinland is a free state now it's hardly called Eminent Thropp, is it?"

Now Elphaba watches as Boq finally attempts to approach Milla. She stands and they talk for a moment – Elphaba could listen in if she tried hard enough, but she realizes she does not care enough and watches instead as Milla shakes her head, stepping backwards, away from Boq. She calls for her children and leaves suddenly, without another word to her husband. Sulking, Boq sits with Frex and Nanny, who is still babbling, and his gaze does not move from Glinda's casket.

"Elphaba," says Singra. "You need to go say good-bye."

And Elphaba realizes Singra is right. She stands, straightening her skirt, and then her cape, and then walks evenly toward Glinda's body in the coffin – she trips only once.

Glinda's body is so foreign to her without the enormous gown. She has been dressed in a single frock, no make up, no glamour, just the ceremonial blanket wrapped around her body – however, even this blanket isn't as fanciful in embroidery as Nessarose's was. This coverlet is plain, pure white and someone – Boq, perhaps? – has laid a fading pink rose on the blanket. Her pale curls were spread out on the pillow, just as Glinda would have wanted them, their shine gone. Tears roll down Elphaba's thin, viridian cheeks and though they do not sting, she wipes them away anyway.

"HELP!"

Elphaba whirls around as a small Munchkin woman comes running into the private gardens.

"THERE'S A HOUSE THAT'S BEEN DROPPED FROM THE SKY!"

Elphaba rushes around the pool toward the woman, even as a dozen others do so as well. The woman is in tears, fear lining every wrinkle in her face and glowing fiercely from her wide eyes. "I was just – just standing there," says the woman, her speech interrupted with hiccoughs, "we – we all were, just standing there and then just this house comes fall – falling from the sky."

"When?" demands Elphaba.

"Two – two hours ago," says the woman. "When the winds stopped – they were worse – worse than ever and several of us had come out of our homes to see the cyclone that had formed and – and it was raging toward us and next thing a wooden house is falling in the middle of Center Munch and – and we scattered and the winds stopped and they sent me here, some of them said there – there would be people here who could help. And – and we think there's someone _inside_ the house, and there's definitely a dog in the house with the someone because we could hear it barking."

Elphaba makes eye contact with Boq, who nods and she moves quickly toward the woman. "I'll go back with you," she says. "Come on, let's go."

Elphaba and the woman hurry out of the funeral, heading up the Yellow Brick Road toward Center Munch. Elphaba pushes thoughts of Glinda from her mind, holds her head up high, and moves bravely onward toward the next dangerous venture.

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_One last review please? Thanks, everyone!_


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